Ideas are indeed cheap and not particularly scarce.
Yet, when you're implementing that idea or talking to a business about buying your implementation of an idea, it is no longer a run of the mill idea. If your or your client's competitor gets wind of what you're doing, they may try to use that knowledge in their role as competitive antagonist. After all, business is war.
Further, ideas can eventually become methods honed by experience. I worked for a company that discovered attempts to sell their system had the unintended consequence of providing valuable consultation to the prospective client. The prospective client could then use hard-won information on how to roll an in-house implementation. They would do this even if the costs were higher, to avoid relying on an external service. In the end, the company ended up charging for consultation, for some reason, bit their tongue when national news credited the client for the innovation.
Not true, not even metaphorically as with team sports. War is about literal destruction whereas business is a competition in production and creativity.
War is about much more than literal destruction, even aside from the easy example of a cold war. War has long been a concern of the appropriation of wealth and power and the destructiveness varies. Sometimes a city was sacked with all its men killed and women taken as property. Sometimes a city would be left largely intact but held under a different banner. Sometimes cities or countries are blockaded and sieged in order to starve them into submission. Then there are sneakier and more covert operations intended to destabilize from within.
Creativity, ingenuity and perseverance can provide success in either war and business, but it's never a guarantee. Consider Edwin Howard Armstrong, who experienced the destruction of his life after he invented FM radio.
Those who wage wars are not necessarily those who actually fight in them. Though it would be distasteful and wrong to equate the plight of an embattled soldier with that of a corporate employee, their metaphorical role as chess pieces to occasionally sacrifice is not without convention.
Yet, when you're implementing that idea or talking to a business about buying your implementation of an idea, it is no longer a run of the mill idea. If your or your client's competitor gets wind of what you're doing, they may try to use that knowledge in their role as competitive antagonist. After all, business is war.
Further, ideas can eventually become methods honed by experience. I worked for a company that discovered attempts to sell their system had the unintended consequence of providing valuable consultation to the prospective client. The prospective client could then use hard-won information on how to roll an in-house implementation. They would do this even if the costs were higher, to avoid relying on an external service. In the end, the company ended up charging for consultation, for some reason, bit their tongue when national news credited the client for the innovation.