Stake Poker - Rake higher than brick and mortar casino?...

[ek0]

I live in California and I play live at a brick and mortar with $5.00 drop and $1.00 for bad beat jackpot.  How does Stake charge more rake than a casino paying for employees to deal?  Also this casino provides surprisingly tasty food and non alcoholic drinks for free (if you play $2/$3 or >), in addition to rake back via points per hour that can be used on tournament entries or food/drink.

I tried opening at $2/$5 table and only one person sat down.  We played heads up for 30 minutes, realized that my opponents stack was the buy-in max and I was down $150 due to rake, otherwise we would have been even.  I never thought that Poker might have the greatest house edge on Stake!?!?  You punished me for opening a new table and accepting to play heads up.   At the minimum you should make the rake/drop scale up from 2 players, 3 players ($1, 2 players, $2, 3 players and etc until max)   Don't punish people for opening new tables?...   How can you justify having rake higher than physical local Los Angeles card room? 

Changes to the rake were made relatively recently.  If these changes were intentional and not done by someone oblivious as to how poker works then Stake doesn't actually want poker players?  You want super recreational players, who don't know better, to join and get slowly ground out to your benefit?...  I hope this was a mistake and will be corrected because from a business perspective the changes are short sighted, the opposite of a plan for growth, and not a long-term revenue stream.

Edited March 31, 2025 by ek0
Wanted to elaborate more on an actual solution. At least one, like scaling the drop up.