Of course. And the goal in part is to enrich prior entrants and also to create massive unearned gains for them by printing a license for something no one else can have. This explains a lot of the housing prices writ large -- boomers and others who own houses that are grandfathered in via various regulations that let them build for cheap but not you, and making a new one has to be done at much higher regulations, basically printing money for those grandfathered in without them having to do anything but add regulations that apply to everyone else but them.