Why compete if someone will just steal your product?

It would just be a waste of time and money.

Imagine you spend two years and $100,000 to make a invent a clever handheld MRI for the super conductor just to have 100 companies Steal Your Design. You would have been better off watching Netflix

Inventions are still subject to patents. If you make a handheld MRI then others shouldn't be able to steal it from you unless they design their own. The material itself is what shouldn't have a patent on it.

Reading comprehension mate, cmon, don't assume bad intent.

Setting aside the needless dig, if you agree that there is utility in some patents, consider now that LK 99 could be example of a whole group or class of compounds, with thousands of permutations that requires significant work to discover, refine, and industrialize. If the compound needs an additive to be able to be manufactured at scale, should that also be unpatentable?

What about the scientist who spent 23 years to develop lk99? There's a lot of solutions within the existing patent system. If governments wanted, they could simply offer them a stupid amount of money for the patent and open source it.

I see where you're coming from, you want the scientists to get paid rather than just whatever large corp manufactures the compound.

And I don't disagree with you, I think the scientists should get rewarded too. I just don't want access to technology that could help people to get held back by money, as it does with pharmaceuticals.