4 ms·

Turns out plundering significant amounts of revenue from patrons to only offer the most bare minimum, lowest effort infrastructure has left everyone jaded and h

Turns out plundering significant amounts of revenue from patrons to only offer the most bare minimum, lowest effort infrastructure has left everyone jaded and having no qualms leaving their leases... My last job had a terrible office, $30k a month in rent. The building required we use all their contractors and designers for everything, no surprise it was the brother and sister of the building owner. Any change in layout had to be run past an approval process that was slow. Even the services were overall disgusting, damaged ceiling tiles, AC didn't operate properly (e.g. rooms that only had intakes thus you couldn't close the door without hurting airflow). Landlords have been a menace for most businesses over the last 30 years as the expectation has become 'easy money'. Gordon Ramsey highlighted it best, the busier your restaurant gets the higher the rent keeps going. They scout your business and charge you just enough for you not to move...

pasquinelli 4y ago
i often wonder how much rent people indirectly pay anytime they buy anything.
- bearjaws 4y ago
  At my last job we had ~$10,000,000 in ARR, so $360k a year works out to 3% of our gross revenue went to rent. I bet that is a lower number than many businesses given we were in a 'cheaper' office park. This does exclude the expense of expanding / renovating the office, which you typically do every 5-10 years, and costs more because you have to go with their contractors. However the delta is hard to calculate on this specific item.
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  It bleeds into absolutely everything. You pay a huge amount to a hospital, requiring rent, paying doctors requiring rent and a huge education cost, which is inflated because of paying employees' rent and inflated healthcare costs because of... The land speculation, education, healthcare trifecta cost spiral in the US has to be like half of peoples' wages.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I would be interested in someone doing the research, it would be nice to know the companies/etc that "own their own land" instead of paying landlords. There's a reason it's called "rent seeking".
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      > There's a reason it's called "rent seeking". Because it's convenient terminology, not because it's exactly on point. When a company (or individual) leases/rents, they are definitely getting some value in return. Owning has both upsides and downsides.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Of course - that's the "rent" part, the seeking is when the rents increase to consume all available headroom (and this is very noticeable when it begins to occur). The simplistic "all landlords are of the devil and must burn" is about as useful as "nobody should own property" - perhaps a nice dream but they don't really help advance the discussion or solve the very real problems that exist.

pasquinelli 4y ago

i often wonder how much rent people indirectly pay anytime they buy anything.

bearjaws 4y ago
At my last job we had ~$10,000,000 in ARR, so $360k a year works out to 3% of our gross revenue went to rent. I bet that is a lower number than many businesses given we were in a 'cheaper' office park. This does exclude the expense of expanding / renovating the office, which you typically do every 5-10 years, and costs more because you have to go with their contractors. However the delta is hard to calculate on this specific item.
reducesuffering 4y ago
It bleeds into absolutely everything. You pay a huge amount to a hospital, requiring rent, paying doctors requiring rent and a huge education cost, which is inflated because of paying employees' rent and inflated healthcare costs because of... The land speculation, education, healthcare trifecta cost spiral in the US has to be like half of peoples' wages.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I would be interested in someone doing the research, it would be nice to know the companies/etc that "own their own land" instead of paying landlords. There's a reason it's called "rent seeking".
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > There's a reason it's called "rent seeking". Because it's convenient terminology, not because it's exactly on point. When a company (or individual) leases/rents, they are definitely getting some value in return. Owning has both upsides and downsides.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Of course - that's the "rent" part, the seeking is when the rents increase to consume all available headroom (and this is very noticeable when it begins to occur). The simplistic "all landlords are of the devil and must burn" is about as useful as "nobody should own property" - perhaps a nice dream but they don't really help advance the discussion or solve the very real problems that exist.