The reason it works for commercial aviation and not anything else -- not even aviation in general -- is that the bureaucratic processes used for commercial aviation incur a massive overhead. When you have a product which costs a hundred million dollars a unit anyway and can kill 300 people in one shot if it fails, you pay the cost. For anything else it's too expensive, but spending less money causes the bureaucracy to be ineffective.
And even in commercial aviation, the overhead is still there, it's just capable of eating the loss. (Or maybe it isn't, given the miserable lack of competition in that industry now. And then where does that lead us on safety, Boeing?)
Well no, you've neatly disproved it.
The reason it works for commercial aviation and not anything else -- not even aviation in general -- is that the bureaucratic processes used for commercial aviation incur a massive overhead. When you have a product which costs a hundred million dollars a unit anyway and can kill 300 people in one shot if it fails, you pay the cost. For anything else it's too expensive, but spending less money causes the bureaucracy to be ineffective.
And even in commercial aviation, the overhead is still there, it's just capable of eating the loss. (Or maybe it isn't, given the miserable lack of competition in that industry now. And then where does that lead us on safety, Boeing?)