I'm not sure this is quite right. I would have thought that most restaurants very much WANT to sell sodas, as the margins are enormous--much, much higher than the margins on cooked food.

This page [0], for instance, says the cost of goods sold for the soda itself is a penny an ounce for the syrup and CO2. Iced tea is apparently the margin champion, as the same page indicates it can cost as little as a penny per glass.

[0] https://www.restaurantowner.com/public/Restaurant-Rules-of-T...

Restaurants only pay because consumers demand it and would not visit the restaurant otherwise. That’s not rent seeking. That’s market forces. And what they pay correlates with how much their customers demand coke/Pepsi.

The rent seeking is buying up competitors until its a duopoly and then protecting that through shenanigans like exclusive agreements. It has nothing to do with consumer demand.

Buying up competitor does not immediately make it a monopoly or duopoly. Especially in industry where barrier of entry are low.

Exclusive / Special agreement with serving only one kind of Soda ( or no Pepsi where there is Coke ) are Anti-Competitive arrangement. Not Rent Seeking.

The exclusivity contracts are what some consider to be rent seeking. I don't know if this is the correct term, but I do believe they are anti-capitalist and shouldn't be allowed in a capitalist economy. If freedom of choice is so important, than large businesses shouldn't be able to use their ability to corner the market to force you into exclusivity agreements.

Yes. But in fairness I retracted rent sneaking as a combination of monopolization, bonafied rents, addiction, and just shear damn inertia contributes to the malaise.

Calling it all "rent seeking" is not a hill I want to die one.

"Rent sneaking" is an interesting typo. Going to have to give some thought to how to use that term in appropriate context.