The phonograph†is not of any commercial value.

-Edison,Thomas Alva
c.1860  Comment to his assistant, Samuel Insull. Edison hoped that his invention would find a place in businesses and offices, rather than in the entertainment world. Quoted in Robert  A Conot  A Streak of Luck: The Life and Legend of  Thomas Edison (1979).

We live in oppressive times.We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder 'censorship', we call it 'concern for commercial viability'.

-Mamet, David Alan
  Writing in Restaurants,'Radio Drama'.

BBC Radio is a never-never land of broadcasting, a safe haven from commercial considerations, a honey pot for every scholar and every hare-brained nut to stick a finger into.

-Safer, Morley
  In 60 Minutes, CBS TV broadcast,15 Sep.

That strange blend of the commercial traveller, the missionary, and the barbarian conqueror, which was the American abroad.

-Stapledon, Olaf
  Last and First Men, ch.3.

Any society, so long as it is, or feels itselfto be, a working society, tends to invest in itself: a military society tends to become more military, a bureaucratic society more bureaucratic, a commercial society more commercial, as thestatus and profits of waroroffice orcommerceare enhanced by success, and institutions are framed to forward it. Therefore, when such a society is hit by a general crisis, it finds itself partly paralyzed by the structural weight of increased social investment. The dominant military or official or commercial classes cannot easily change their orientation: and their social dominance, and the institutions through which it is exercised, prevent other classes from securing power or changing policy.

-Glanton
  The Rise of Christian Europe.