Fair point — updated to "most of the time."
> the opposite is the literal definition of rent-seeking behavior, which produces gobs of money, but provides no (or very little, at best) new value to others.
Rent-seeking is real, and you're right that it can be very profitable — while creating very little value for others. But even so, it remains the best available option when nobody else steps up to offer something better in free markets.
There are always two sides to any deal — the deal maker and the taker. The more competition on the maker side, the more value the taker can get. And the more takers demand real value, the less room rent-seeking behavior has to survive.
> The days of rent seekers are coming to an end. But not because there will be no more rent seeking, it’s because rent seeking is a 0 sum game and you will lose at it to bigger players. If you have a job like that, or work at a company like that, the sooner you quit the better your outcome will be. This is the real driver of the layoffs, the big players consolidating the rent seeking to them.