“You are free to do what we say.”
—Modern governance in biotech and software
In a true capitalist market, value is exchanged freely. Consent is mutual. But today, the core of most industries has been overtaken by monopolized infrastructure that presents the illusion of choice, while locking participants into rent-seeking compliance protocols.
You do not own your water, your seed, your software, or your body. You lease permission to exist—on someone else’s platform, under someone else’s rules.
There is no longer such a thing as “free market competition” when:
Access to launch a product is gated by certifications no customer actually asked for
Your startup’s survival is based on whether you pass an arbitrary audit, not whether your product works
Compliance vendors become shadow gatekeepers, extracting fees under threat of extinction
Let’s name names. Here are some of the worst offenders:
RegimeWhat It Claims To DoWhat It Actually DoesSOC 2 Type II (AICPA)Ensures security controls in SaaSCharges $40K–100K/year to generate paperwork no user readsHITRUSTAligns health orgs to "best practices"A private company selling mandatory badges to competeFedRAMPCertifies cloud tools for gov useYears-long process to bless AWS reselling with a new sticker
HITRUST President: Daniel Nutkis
Organization: HITRUST Alliance
Note: HITRUST is not a government body—it’s a private firm profiting off monopoly compliance.
SOC 2: Enforced by AICPA (American Institute of CPAs)
Board Info: AICPA Leadership
There is no legal mandate for SOC 2. It is a business cartel agreement to exclude "non-certified" competitors.
FedRAMP: Run by GSA
Official site:
https://www.fedramp.gov
You cannot sell basic hosting or services to federal buyers without this. It is a closed loop of rent extraction.
Startups often believe they're operating in a "permissionless" world—until they try to:
Integrate a payment gateway without PCI-DSS
Store a user profile without GDPR / CCPA compliance
Offer AI-generated suggestions without getting sued for algorithmic bias
Even if no customer complains, your competitors will weaponize compliance to disqualify you. It’s not about safety—it’s about exclusion.
When every product needs:
A third-party certification
A subscription to a compliance firm
A consultant to navigate meaningless rituals
You no longer compete on value. You compete on proximity to the priesthood—those who can bless your startup with regulatory indulgences.
The result? Monopoly via procedure.
The most compliant firms aren’t the best—they’re the most connected.
If you're forced to “choose” between:
Paying $100,000 to HITRUST or
Being locked out of the market
That's not consent. That’s compliance ransom. The certificate becomes the product, and the product becomes irrelevant.
And once a few players submit, the system metastasizes:
Buyers make it a requirement
Vendors sell it as insurance
Startups die if they resist
If we're serious about decentralization, open innovation, or sovereign entrepreneurship, then:
Compliance must be opt-in, not mandatory to exist.
Certification must follow market value, not precede it.
Liability should be user-held, not offloaded onto small builders.
Let users opt into risk, not demand that founders pay to eliminate all of it in advance.
Compliance without feedback is not safety.
Certification without testing is not merit.
Consent without alternatives is not freedom.
If your product works, and your users want it—you should not need to ask for permission from a committee of unelected, rent-seeking monopolists.
You were not born to pass audits.
You were born to build.