Specifically, in the software industry, progress is highly sequential: progress is typically made through a large number of small steps, each building on the previous ones.
In an industry with highly sequential innovation, it may be better for society to scrap patents altogether than try to tighten them.
If I'm a bank, and I'm making risky loans, I have an incentive, if I can, to make those loans using other people's money: in other words, to make highly leveraged loans.