Seems like everything good would have been invented by people anyway, and lots of the bad things are done in the name of profits. Maybe they would have also happened in another system, but the point stands.
What, like, Double Stuffed Oreo's? Can we even call those good?
100% we would have gotten those earlier and better if those properties had been public domain the whole time. You know how many Robinhood/Sherlock movies there are?
We did, the Extended Universe only existed because Lucas wasn't as on the ball about prosecuting people as Disney. Also basically let other people do his job for free lol.