What do you mean by "always"? They certainly haven't literally always played this role. And while maximizing wealth creation may be the goal, we have no way of knowing if they were successful in doing that, or if the money would have been better spent elsewhere.

Are you able to answer this question: How will we pay to fix climate change on a bitcoin standard? Maybe you live in a place where you aren't allowed to speak freely? If so I understand, surveillance is really getting out of hand these days.