Before I begin: I fully agree with this statement.
If the cost is not internalised, it doesn’t mean there’s no cost: it’s just external, “dumped on the commons”.
So, if what follows gets you conflicted – please start reading from the beginning. 
When discussing storage rent, one must take into account existing application-layer use patterns. Just about everything on this layer has been built with the assumption there is no rent. A change on the underlying layer means these patterns will have to be re-evaluated.
Exhibit A: the ERC-20 standard, and all tokens built on it. (I’d assert these make a sizeable portion of the ecosystem.)
According to the standard, anyone can set any allowance to anyone else, even if it’s above their balance, or if they have no balance at all.
In the spirit of creative mischief that’s essential to the day of March 32, – and to more clearly demonstrate my point! – I’ve filled Aragon token allowances from a contract (etherscan, etherchain) to the precompiles in the 0x00 .. 0x3f range, with lyrics to a song I find wholly fitting the situation.
(There’s a simple way to see what was posted, but it requires use of one of the centralised services linked.)
Now, the contract has self-destructed upon completing its task, so it won’t be setting the allowances back to zero.
The precompiles won’t be calling the Aragon token to withdraw their allowances – and, in either case, there’s nothing to withdraw.
So – the graffiti is there forever!.. (Well, “until the landlord calls”.)
Imagine there was storage rent. Who pays it?
If the answer is “Aragon”, then they’ll have to seriously re-consider managing the storage footprint, – especially since the token’s using MiniMe under the hood.
If the answer is “the sender”, then how and where do you do accounting? Do the users pay for their own accounting, too? Will the use case still be viable if accounting is taken into account?.. (Pun intended.)
Just about every other token will have to do the same. The effort required to “upgrade” the existing ecosystem to the new rent paradigm will be tremendous. This is not just existing contracts, but also standards.
(Got to run - will have to stop here.)
Happy Fools’ day! I’m afraid that’s us. 