Precisely, Not to defend Namecheap but we are in a different time. I don't know everyone's age on HN. But If they were just 40s, they would have lived in a zero interest era for 15 years and nearly all of their professional lives. We are having inflation, cost of money going up. The margin that used to work for Namecheap may no longer works for them now. And you have plenty of option outside of NameCheap. And again, none of this could be called rent seeking.
Of course there is an argument in US and Tech today ( as shown in many of the comment ) that margin is somehow evil. And should be as low as possible. I guess that is a different argument.
You are really just trying to get to rent-seeking behavior provides little value. My argument is that a lot of tech companies are providing rent-seeking behavior at a huge scale - and if you work for one of those companies in which you are deriving your income from that very behavior - how can you be so high and mighty about a small time landlord deriving small money from rent-seeking behavior except for, when of course, it hurts your own pocket.
We should not tolerate this rampant monopoly based rent seeking.
Even if there is an argument to be made about supply and demand on names... at least it should be easier to agree that private entities shouldn't be allowed to profit from it; distinct from charging a reasonable service fee.
You're right, I did abuse the term "rent seeking" but history really does show that high margin businesses would rather go out of business than stay competitive.
If people weren't afraid of China, Cisco would be gone already.
If Xi could have just put off the scary behavior to his successor, our carmakers and other major industries would have put themselves out of their misery too. (e.g. GM's plan is to have electric Cadillacs and I guess everybody else rides a bike)
You are right about companies looking for rent seeking. Rent seeking is a global trend unfortunately, and I'm pretty sure this trend will end bad for us.
Nitpick: Rent-seeking is an economic term that describes an actor that provides no value for end users. It is not a synonym for someone who rents you something.
It’s confusing because it can apply to landlords who also seek to restrict supply, and people then conflate the former with the term.
Of those companies listed, maybe you can finger Oracle for their shenanigans with Java.
Rent-seeking involves manipulating public policy to artificially increase profits. This isn't really the case, is it?
The point sometimes people miss is that the value of a service varies to each person, business or team.
It might be that, for you, in the contexts you were in, they were capturing too much with their price to the point its not advantageous for you to use the service. That's fine, use something else. But it doesn't mean everyone lives the exact same experience as you.
I wish I shared your certainty but ours is the age of the rent seeker. They don't care about 'Good.' They want to get paid and if there is any remotely feasible way to impose themselves they will, tradition be damned.
"Rent-seeking" is when there isn't risk. If you set up a new investment in a competitive market, and sell access, that's not rent-seeking.
In this scenario, the predatory pricing is a key aspect of how it becomes rent seeking, and a well-functioning market would not have predatory pricing. And the root issue is tied in to how current US copyright law has major flaws.
Really appreciate this sub-thread, including @Zoo3y and @teucris' comments. I share a similar perspective. In the case of this article, I feel like a lot of the behaviors come back to rent-seeking — here's a perspective that might resonate with you:
Correct, but I think people are getting hung up on the price and rent-seeking aspect. The price is a farce. Really, what's happening is the restriction of knowledge to the ivory towers (and their VPNs).
If you use "rent-seeking", you need to know what it means. I do not believe that you do know what it means. Economists use "rent" to denote extraction from existing wealth. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicrent.asp
Brave adds wealth by pricing users back in from the start (via a genesis block of tokens we give to users and referring creators), and by blocking inefficient, dangerous intermediaries (cut out the middlemen, as Marx said) for a much more efficient market.
Those intermediaries are the _grands rentiers_ today, and yet all but Google, Facebook, Criteo, Amazon, and a few others are dying. Ad/tracker-blocking is a user right but it alone cannot explain the walking death of most intermediaries in the Lumascape.
Rather, too many intermediaries arbitrage and abuse data. This induces not only the ongoing rise of ad/tracker blocking by users -- it cuts off residual revenue to publishers (who make <40% off of programmatic ads in practice, sometimes <20%), who also want fewer hands in the till. Arbitrage always goes away (till next opportunity). The data misuse causes ongoing rifts and scandals. GDPR and laws like it are icing on the cake.
If you are party to the existing Lumascape of ad-tech vendors, your post is projection and I suggest looking honestly in a mirror to see "rent-seeking". If you're calling Brave rent-seeking out of some irrational animus, take a closer look at the product itself, and let's reason together.
Of course there is an argument in US and Tech today ( as shown in many of the comment ) that margin is somehow evil. And should be as low as possible. I guess that is a different argument.
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