[ammanley]

Reminds me of the situation with AOL dialup, which I was surprised as heck to learn is a) still a thing and b) charges way more than I would have expected in areas where its otherwise not feasible to get high speed internet (easily). Could be similar to the situation here with people who can't leave/won't leave for personal or career reasons, and taking up the prices available.

[AlbertCory]

I think "captive market" is the term you want. Same reason cable TV bills keep climbing to +$200/month, and newspaper delivery prices keep going up while the product keeps shrinking.

Demand for some things is elastic only down to a point. That's the point where customers are hostages.

[TheCoelacanth]

Newspaper prices are more of a death spiral than a captive market.

People stop getting papers delivered in favor of online news, so prices have to go up to cover fixed costs, pushing more people to stop getting papers delivered and so on.

[ammanley]

Thank you, appreciate that, was looking to put a word to the term in my brainpan.