I think the "chimps in a cage" needs some followup experiments to tell the whole story -- replacing the banana with a much higher value reward, or placing another water hose which fires if chimps stopped trying to reach the reward ;)
Most likely, useless controls exist because the company thinks they are good enough for the business and there's no incentive to improve or replace them.
The chimps story is made up. There was a study that tried to test something like that but only in one case, out of many trials, was a chimp discouraged from doing something by another chimp, due to the second chimp’s fear.
Most likely, useless controls exist because the company thinks they are good enough for the business and there's no incentive to improve or replace them.