I think one depressing example is innovation in weapons and other dangerous fields. “If we don’t build it, someone else will first” is unfortunately historically been shown to be true, has it not?

Capitalism didn’t introduce “innovation” nor did Capitalism introduce “competition”. People were technologically innovating before capitalism and will be technologically innovating after capitalism. “If we don’t build it, someone else will first” was just as motivating a factor in warfare in the year 2024 BCE as it is in 2024 CE.

Capitalism is not an invention on a tech tree in a civilization video game. Capitalism is a unique historical confluence of several things happening around the same time: Rapid industrialization, the end of feudalism and serfdom, proletarianization of the peasantry, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the fall of the landed aristocracy, wage labor becoming the dominant form of labor, the destruction of the guild system, the creation of the factory system, hyperspecialization (division of labor always existed by hyperspecialization was unique in that you’d spend 12 hours in a factory doing exactly 1 task in the 19th century assembly line, rendering you unable to learn other skills or have any free time after work) the creation of the international credit system and national banks, the creation of the world economy, and the reproduction of capital through the appropriation of surplus value.

Another thing people don’t understand about Capitalism is that Capitalism comes after Capital. Marx goes into nauseating detail talking about Pre-existing forms of capital, like merchant’s capital, and usurer’s capital, which predate industrial capital. Some people think capitalism simply means private property plus money plus trade. No. Those things have always existed. Capitalism involves a bit more than that. At least in the Marxist analysis.

If you’re looking for things unique to capitalism as conceived by Marx: it was proletarianization, hyperspecialization, and industrial capital.