💸 This is what economists call “rent-seeking”—but it’s really just legalized skimming. Barrett’s great post highlights a brutal reality: developers are being forced to spend $858K on a system that has never saved a life. Why? Because one company got its product written into the building code—and now every new apartment project in certain states has to buy it. That’s rent-seeking: making money not by creating value, but by gaming the system to force others to pay you. We wonder why housing is so expensive… Meanwhile, regulators are handing out monopolies in the name of “safety” with no real-world results. If you build or invest in real estate, this post should piss you off.