>Economic rents are a very specific phenomenon and it simply does not mean charging for something that is perceived as being low/no effort. I've seen this meme

>Economic rents are a very specific phenomenon and it simply does not mean charging for something that is perceived as being low/no effort. I've seen this meme lately, always in defense of said "rent-seeking" behavior. But Wikipedia says: "economic rent is any payment to an owner or factor of production in excess of the costs needed to bring that factor into production" - in other words, exactly this.