What would be the purpose of hiking the fees except to make it more expensive to produce things? It would make sense if the low staking fee were being abused by bad actors using it to “squat” on things they don’t use - and I bet that does occur to an extent. But it seems like anybody else interested in the land economically could have also just filed a claim?

It actually seems like a good thing to keep the land in the commons and license it out. I think all land that’s not actively being used should belong to the commons instead of private individuals. To do otherwise allows land speculators and those engaging in rentiership to steal economic output from those who are actually producing value - if anybody’s going to do that, better for it to be the entity paying for roads and schools. The corporation will still pay income taxes on its labor, capital costs which are just income of some other entity, and corporate taxes - overtaxing the commons to try to shift more of the value-capture there is actually an inefficient form of double taxation that hurts international competitiveness.

One thing that really bothers me about this article is the tone about “ravaging” or exploiting the land as if all mining is this terribly evil thing. I for one like having inexpensive metals and energy. Until very very recently in human history in a small set of developed countries, all mining was done by slaves or the most desperate people in a society - it still is in the vast majority of developing economies engaging in mining, and it was even in the US until about a hundred years ago. I like having a 21st century standard of living and good but not perfect environmental regulations more than I like slavery or living as if I’m in the Stone Age.