I’ll tell you the logic of it.
Staying alive provides a greater incentive than greater profit.
Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.
That’s why tech innovation is so rapid during wartime.
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
Pretty much the only reason for a business to "stay alive" is to make profit. It is the only reason they get capital available to do any work, production or R&D.
That’s why tech innovation is so rapid during wartime.
That is because government don't care what it costs, it isn't their money.
Let me share my perspective, after a couple decades of having oil/gas/petrochem companies as clients.
Anyone in the business more than a few years with any reasonable comprehension skills, understand the bust is coming, regardless of how great the boom looks at the time. When and how long it lasts is beyond reliable prediction, too many variables too far removed from us.
If they didn’t prepare for the bust while the boom was going, their potential to survive intact is in question. When the revenue is climbing is when you have the ability to do R&D.
Once the bust starts, unless you adequately prepared, it is survival mode, selling assets to those that better prepared depending how deep and how long the busts lasts.
When the prices start falling this fast and deep, it is not the time to start large R&D expenses; that time has already passed. If you are in a positions of cash reserves because you planned well, it is a time to buy up assets of others who didn’t plan well, a discounted prices.