Do you believe that, really?
As an example, for most users, using Linux on the desktop is a lot more painful than using Windows on the desktop, because Microsoft has to pay a lot of people to do boring work that makes Windows less painful to the user. Linux only gains the features that someone feels it is rewarding to work on.
If we don't have copyright, then we have no way of rewarding dull work that only makes economic sense when replicated across millions. Think of the garbage truck: it's dull and smelly work, and you have to get up in the middle of the night. Almost nobody would do that if they didn't get paid. Yet society needs that work done -- yet we figure out how to compensate that work so it gets done.
Perhaps we can come up with a better way to compensate this kind of development work, but your argument does not provide a credible alternative.
And yet, we don't offer garbage men royalties on the garbage they've collected for 70 years after their death.