Not new. Turbotax has long lobbied the government to make the tax law convoluted so you have to use Turbotax (or another similarsoftware) so you can avoid fines for submitting the wrong amount of taxes.
You're correct that it doesn't have to do with patents. But the point is about abusing the legal system to extract value from others. What Turbotax does is worse. So it is not a "new level" of abuse of the legal system.
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Not new. Turbotax has long lobbied the government to make the tax law convoluted so you have to use Turbotax (or another similarsoftware) so you can avoid fines for submitting the wrong amount of taxes.
I don't feel like thats quite the same thing but I also hate it.
That has nothing to do with patents and/or patent trolling. You don't need to pay patent royalties to file your taxes.. (for example)
You're correct that it doesn't have to do with patents. But the point is about abusing the legal system to extract value from others. What Turbotax does is worse. So it is not a "new level" of abuse of the legal system.
Both are arguably forms of rent-seeking.