Rent-Seeking Architecture
Intermediaries and gatekeepers inserted into a flow to extract a toll without adding value; rents look like fees, platforms or 'standards', and the payer often cannot see the alternative path.
An everyday example
A marketplace that takes 30% for access to customers who were yours before it existed.
What it can cost you
Paying for position rather than value; building your business on someone else's toll road.
Warning signs
- We pay for access to our own customers.
- The fee buys position, not work.
One thing to do
For every fee, ask what value it adds and what it would cost to route around it; keep direct channels alive even when the intermediary is convenient.
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