There's nothing whatsoever hand-wavy about inflation. It's as real as can be, and it affects everyone and everything.

> As of 2022, their operating margin was about 65%... That doesn't indicate a company that needs to increase prices.

It indicates nothing. That isn't even close to proper analysis of their financials. As is often the case with chat room discussions, people just love to grab onto one number or one fact and use it to flog everyone to death. Well, I have news, reality --as opposed to fantasy-- is a complex multivariate problem. A single number is meaningless.

Note that I am not at all defending Verisign. I know nothing about their operations and don't have the time to dive into it. For all I know this actually is 100% rent-seeking, in the full economic sense of the term.

I am defending reason and the requirement for solid analysis and justification before accusing anyone of anything. This, in sharp contrast with the typical lynching mob mentality that permeates online conversations.

What I am sick of and will not do, is people just jumping at labelling things (people, businesses, etc.) because they don't like something rather than through critical thinking, demonstrable and reproducible analysis of facts in full context. You know, like calling someone "racist" because they bought vanilla ice cream (not making light of real racism, but one has to admit we have taken that term to insane lengths and depths).

Maybe this is rent-seeking. Don't know. What I do know is that the claim has been made in this thread and the only real support is feelings, not well-presented evidence.

Also, saying someone makes 65% operating margin as a measure of evil-ness is ridiculous. Who put anyone in charge of deciding how much margin makes someone worthy? 5%? 10%? 25%? 0%? What happens to that fake virtuous badge when things go wrong (pandemic, economic downturn) and the company has to fire half the staff because they were labeled evil for making more than 5%? Yeah, the people who lost their jobs are going to think very highly of the virtue police on that day.

As someone who has founded and operated multiple businesses in the last four decades, this kind of thing really drives me up a wall. People who have never risked a dime of their own trying to make a non-trivial business go actually think they understand business. It's both the saddest and the funniest thing seen online and, with some frequency, on HN.