Maybe the phrase I rather should have used would be "profiteering"?
But according to Wikipedia, I think the "classic example" fits many SaaS vendors:
The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through their land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector, nor do passing boats get anything in return. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for themselves. *All they are doing is finding a way to obtain money from something that used to be free*.
But how does that fit SAAS vendors? If someone cut my fibre wire and added a box that stopped it working if I didn't pay them, I would say that that is rent seeking. A SAAS vendor doesn't seem to fit that pattern.
> Rent seeking is getting the government/a regulator to mandate the use of your service.
That sounds like your personal narrower definition. Where did you get that from?
The wider use is both historically and semantically accurate and I believe people familiar with the term will still recognize its intended meaning today.
Needlessly making a physical product unusable without the continued subscription to an associated service, and designing the product in such a way that only the manufacturer can/may provide that service (aka vendor-lock-in) is pretty much rent-seeking, yeah.
