It seems rather silly that they don't charge their clients though, instead charging their victims.

If they directly charged the landlords, maybe some of them would consider whether the service is worth 10-15% of a year's income.

Who pays the broker is generally a sign of the market conditions. When it's a renters market the landlord eats the fees, when vacancies are down, like now, it's the other way around.

Also, for all the reasons mentioned in potatolicious's other post [1], it's difficult for a landlord that is renting directly (i.e. without a fee) to convincingly communicate that fact to potential renters.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6027785

Has it ever been a renter's market in NYC? It seems that NYC's rental market has to have been deeply in favor of landlords for a very long time in order to create a market for these brokers to even exist.

In 2002-3, I remember landlords not only paying broker's fees, but also offering 1-2 months free. Then in 2009-10 there was another dip after the banks laid off all those people.

I wasn't renting in the Dinkins' era, but from what I hear it was an entirely different story.