Why is this card so bad? I feel like it could have been 10 payoff and it would have been fine as a grudgingly-included last economy card. At the moment I think it can sometimes that, but including it feels horrible.
It is however an opportunity to showcase the objectively correct way to evaluate economy cards™. This involves numbers in the format 'x/ for y clicks. This should be calculated using the simplifying assumption that a card requires 1 to draw and 1 to play. A Sure Gamble, for instance, makes a profit of 4 spread over the 2 it takes to draw and play. This means its payoff is is 2/ for 2 clicks. Sometimes you migh situationally want to count or not-count a click in this evaluation. If you're making a Clean Getaway, for instance, you might choose to count the associated run as an end in itself and accordingly discount the cost to play it. This makes its payoff an efficient burst of 3/ for 1 click. If you're just running archives for no other benefit, though, it makes sense to count the click in your evaluation, making it a much less attractive 1.5/ for 2 clicks.
In addition to the pure numbers, of course, you should also count in the faff and delay associated with said economy. Many resources are more efficient than Operations in terms of the calculation above, but annoying in other ways. Examples include Environmental Testing (3/ for 2 clicks!) and Smartware Distributor, which asymptotically approaches 3/ for ∞ clicks but only manages 1/ for 3 clicks over 3 turns, 1.5/ for 4 clicks over 6 turns, 1.8/ for 5 clicks over 9 turns, etc. Faff and delay is often far more situational to evaluate than the pure numbers, but you can often put numbers on it using sensible rules of thumb, for instance counting the card drawn by Side Hustle as a saved. You can also use this framework to evaluate, for instance, the efficiency of clicking for a so that you can afford to play a Sure Gamble (1.667/ for 3 clicks).
So using this framework, let's evaluate Rent Rioters. It's ability requires extra s to be spent, so overall it pays us 1.4 / for 5 clicks, a total profit of 7. That's pretty uninspiring - it's less efficient per than the Clean Getaway on archives we evaluated, which is a pretty horrible indictment. Its only advantage is that it allows us to get that horribly low-efficiency economy over more s invested. Added to this, it is significantly faffy to use. Spending all together is unwieldy enough that it usually stops the runner running for the turn, taking significant pressure off the corp. And until you've done that, this card puts you 2 down.
So that's why it's bad. It has bad numbers, and it's a pain to use.
Have you read The Tusks of Extinction?
— D4v1d-Gr43b3r