They weren't forced by a nebulous system but by a for-profit company. Hackernews needs to be consistent - that for-profit company saw value there, and created that value. (In the ycombinator sense.) Do you really not see the difference between a broken window and a company getting people to pay it to install windows through legal pressure?

I'm disagreeing with the definition of "value" used around here - for normal companies, not patent trolls - and to show my disapproval with this notion I insist that the word value be applied here as well.

I'm not aware that the ycombinator sense of value is profit (or maybe income?). Not saying it isn't, I'm just unaware of that.

And when I said system, I meant the law forcing the companies to pay, not the troll using the law as a tool to create profit.

We could enter murky territory on whether other forced forms of income (taxes or fines, for example) provide value, they are forced but on the other hands they are supposedly used to common benefit, instead of private profit.

Consistent? There are thousands of commentators here trying to gratify each others' intellectual curiosity. We aren't required to agree on everything, and if we did, hardly any of us would have anything useful to say. For me, value is relative to the status quo ante. The difference between trade and extortion is in what would have happened if you weren't present and making the offer. Is everyone slightly worse off, or better?