6 ms·

In economics they call this rent seeking[1] > Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment with

In economics they call this rent seeking[1] > Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. You can see Reddit as a landlord, owning the land (or website) that the value grows on. They don't contribute value themselves, instead they make money by charging rent to everyone who wishes to grow value on their land. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

hinkley 3y ago
> by charging rent to everyone who wishes to grow value on their land. That goes beyond rent-seeking into feudalism. Rent seeking is running an application as a service that could just be a tool you pay once for, and instead have to pay for monthly. Charging people rent for access to a commons in which they provide all of the value is digital serfdom.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  The business’s servers, bandwidth, and employees are “commons” now?
  - hinkley 3y ago
    The land the nobility or the roman catholic church owned were the 'commons' then. A server with nothing on it is like a field of weeds. It's just taking up space.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I agree on land being the “commons”. If a server with nothing on it is just taking up space, then the users will have no problem spinning their own up and replacing Reddit or whatever.
      - MagnumOpus 3y ago
        That's the point, the server is commodity, hacker news or voat or dozens of others can provide the same platform. The community and the eyeballs are what is valuable, and Reddit holds them captive not due to any incremental value they provide, but due to network effects. Lots of people or companies would immediately replace Reddit if the quality of the server or UX or UI was what mattered -- but cannot because the audience is captive. Killing the apps represents a unique "digg moment" of pissing off users enough to bother migrating.
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      A field of weeds is home to insects, pollinators, small wildlife, CO2 removing/oxygen producing plants, it can be a nice place to look at, to make a path and walk through, weeds can be beneficial[1] to the soil, or edible or medicinal[2]. A server with nothing on it is worse than taking up space, it's an investment of energy and CO2 release to make it and ship it around the world, and if it's powered on then it's taking electricity probably from fossil fuels and turning it into waste heat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneficial_weed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneficial_weed [2] https://gardenerspath.com/plants/herbs/edible-medicinal-weeds/ https://gardenerspath.com/plants/herbs/edible-medicinal-weed...
  - stavrianos 3y ago
    We could fight about the actual value of the CPU, HDD, network, etc is. Not literally zero. The manpower to keep it running is a stronger argument, but I still think it's missing the point. The real value is the community generated content, and yeah, that's a commons.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      Subtract the fact that at least the serfs got to keep some of the net product of their labor while Reddit users get less than nothing and I think it all evens out.
      - sigstoat 3y ago
        > while Reddit users get less than nothing those poor bastards, all chained to their computers, joylessly creating content for their overlords.
        vitiral 3y ago
        That's actually pretty descriptive.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        Reddit users get less than nothing? Then why were they using Reddit’s computers in the first place?
        hinkley 3y ago
        From the owners. Everything they get is from the other users, and the moderators. Unless you enjoy ads. I mean occasionally they are funny.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      > The real value is the community generated content, and yeah, that's a commons. According to which court or government? I'm not familiar with every country, but I don't think a single G20 country or the UN has spelled out anything like that.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    For the sake of this metaphor, all of that would be equivalent to the park, custodians, and park rangers. The latter two are paid by the government (the "owners"), but few people would argue a park as a "commons". So, maybe? main difference ofc is that few pay for a private server, despite contributing to it. Parks are paid for by taxes, and sometimes voted upon by citizens to allocate budgets for. But a park with no visitors is similar to a forum with no visitors.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  Charging people for a valuable service is the opposite of rent seeking.
  - xigoi 3y ago
    The service itself isn't valuable, the content is.

hinkley 3y ago

> by charging rent to everyone who wishes to grow value on their land. That goes beyond rent-seeking into feudalism. Rent seeking is running an application as a service that could just be a tool you pay once for, and instead have to pay for monthly. Charging people rent for access to a commons in which they provide all of the value is digital serfdom.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
The business’s servers, bandwidth, and employees are “commons” now?
- hinkley 3y ago
  The land the nobility or the roman catholic church owned were the 'commons' then. A server with nothing on it is like a field of weeds. It's just taking up space.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I agree on land being the “commons”. If a server with nothing on it is just taking up space, then the users will have no problem spinning their own up and replacing Reddit or whatever.
    - MagnumOpus 3y ago
      That's the point, the server is commodity, hacker news or voat or dozens of others can provide the same platform. The community and the eyeballs are what is valuable, and Reddit holds them captive not due to any incremental value they provide, but due to network effects. Lots of people or companies would immediately replace Reddit if the quality of the server or UX or UI was what mattered -- but cannot because the audience is captive. Killing the apps represents a unique "digg moment" of pissing off users enough to bother migrating.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    A field of weeds is home to insects, pollinators, small wildlife, CO2 removing/oxygen producing plants, it can be a nice place to look at, to make a path and walk through, weeds can be beneficial[1] to the soil, or edible or medicinal[2]. A server with nothing on it is worse than taking up space, it's an investment of energy and CO2 release to make it and ship it around the world, and if it's powered on then it's taking electricity probably from fossil fuels and turning it into waste heat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneficial_weed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneficial_weed [2] https://gardenerspath.com/plants/herbs/edible-medicinal-weeds/ https://gardenerspath.com/plants/herbs/edible-medicinal-weed...
- stavrianos 3y ago
  We could fight about the actual value of the CPU, HDD, network, etc is. Not literally zero. The manpower to keep it running is a stronger argument, but I still think it's missing the point. The real value is the community generated content, and yeah, that's a commons.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Subtract the fact that at least the serfs got to keep some of the net product of their labor while Reddit users get less than nothing and I think it all evens out.
    - sigstoat 3y ago
      > while Reddit users get less than nothing those poor bastards, all chained to their computers, joylessly creating content for their overlords.
      - vitiral 3y ago
        That's actually pretty descriptive.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Reddit users get less than nothing? Then why were they using Reddit’s computers in the first place?
      - hinkley 3y ago
        From the owners. Everything they get is from the other users, and the moderators. Unless you enjoy ads. I mean occasionally they are funny.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    > The real value is the community generated content, and yeah, that's a commons. According to which court or government? I'm not familiar with every country, but I don't think a single G20 country or the UN has spelled out anything like that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  For the sake of this metaphor, all of that would be equivalent to the park, custodians, and park rangers. The latter two are paid by the government (the "owners"), but few people would argue a park as a "commons". So, maybe? main difference ofc is that few pay for a private server, despite contributing to it. Parks are paid for by taxes, and sometimes voted upon by citizens to allocate budgets for. But a park with no visitors is similar to a forum with no visitors.
zeroonetwothree 3y ago
Charging people for a valuable service is the opposite of rent seeking.
- xigoi 3y ago
  The service itself isn't valuable, the content is.