Yes its more in the absence of a government initiative. IIRC, what happened with organics is that it started as pay to play and then the USDA came along and took the best practices from the pay to play initiatives and introduced the USDA Organic.

> The only legit solution is the government...

Which government? I mean, I'm certainly not going to be very impressed if the (for example) US government releases a statement saying "Yeah guys, app Foo is totally legit and doesn't track you or leak any of your private information".

They may be without a profit motive but individual bureaucrats and legislators certainly have a power motive which is often just as, if not more, insidious.

Which is why campaign finance reform is essential.

"The only legit solution is the government, because they are the only ones without a profit motive in the whole system"

LOL. As you even parenthetically recognize, government doesn't magically solve humanity's capacity for wickedness.

The true "legit" solution is institutional legitimacy, which is fundamentally founded in a devotion to rational integrity. Genuine legitimacy can only be earned by sustained integrity, its not minted with the legislator's pen.

I agree that you're right to be concerned with the bad incentives of pay for play, but you appear to be missing the unintended consequences of imposing a regulatory monopoly.