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"This brings me to my definition of rent seeking. Instead of attempting to take, say, the total cost of a project, including all of the sales and maneuvering co

"This brings me to my definition of rent seeking. Instead of attempting to take, say, the total cost of a project, including all of the sales and maneuvering costs, and set that off against the total benefit, I have a more modest proposal. Clearly, that total cost is what we would like to do but cannot. My suggestion is that we use the term "rent seeking" (and I always have) solely for cases in which whatever is proposed has a negative social impact. " - Gordon Tullock, The Rent-Seeking Society (2005), p.9 Tullock is credited as the originator of the concept of rent-seeking. I think anyone who claims Apple is rent-seeking would agree that the App Store has a negative social impact. They are using the term as its originator intended. Apple is acting as a middleman.

hellisothers 6y ago
I clearly am biased towards thinking Apple deserves to set whatever price they want but at what point do you feel the App Store became rent seeking? Was it 2008? 2014? 2019? My point being that at the time it was released the platform was welcomed as an amazing opportunity and at some point that soured, but why?
mardifoufs 6y ago
How does it have a negative social impact? In any case,the common definition usually includes getting money without generating wealth, which does not make sense here. Apple generates wealth for the devs. Apple produced the ecosystem and the user experience thus generating value for the devs. I get the social impact thing but it eventually leads to "anything I disapprove of is rentseeking". You can be against Apple, there's plenty of reason to be, but its important to use the right terms. If rent seeking is really all business manoeuvring leading to damaging social impacts, the word becomes much less meaningful. Social impact is subjective and hard to measure, lack of wealth creation and profiteering are much more useful metrics in economic.
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hellisothers 6y ago

I clearly am biased towards thinking Apple deserves to set whatever price they want but at what point do you feel the App Store became rent seeking? Was it 2008? 2014? 2019? My point being that at the time it was released the platform was welcomed as an amazing opportunity and at some point that soured, but why?

mardifoufs 6y ago

How does it have a negative social impact? In any case,the common definition usually includes getting money without generating wealth, which does not make sense here. Apple generates wealth for the devs. Apple produced the ecosystem and the user experience thus generating value for the devs. I get the social impact thing but it eventually leads to "anything I disapprove of is rentseeking". You can be against Apple, there's plenty of reason to be, but its important to use the right terms. If rent seeking is really all business manoeuvring leading to damaging social impacts, the word becomes much less meaningful. Social impact is subjective and hard to measure, lack of wealth creation and profiteering are much more useful metrics in economic.

deleted 6y ago
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