Clearly, that depends on various technical properties of the seastead. Also, I don't know enough about most industries to say what exactly would be necessary for them.
As for concrete examples of crackdowns on honest industries, it's hard to find any that wouldn't immediately open charged political topics. However, there are clear examples of industries massively changing jurisdictions in response to increased regulatory compliance costs. Another interesting data point is the success of well-governed small countries in attracting foreign business.
It's hard to know in advance how good a government is. Five years ago, people might have held up Ireland and Iceland as well-governed successful small countries. Those no longer look so persuasive. There's a danger of confirmation bias here -- we only know they're well governed because they're successful.
Singapore, Switzerland, and Hong Kong are the successful well-governed small countries I can think of offhand. But I'm not sure the one caused the other. New York, Silicon Valley, and London are doing comparably well in terms of GDP per capita and I think...
Recently the relatively awesome entrepreneur invested 1.25 million USD into this (seasteading institute website here).
It seems such a wonderful concept, finally somewhere where new forms of government could be tried out. But I'm just wondering how in the world they hope to deal with existing governments since their reaction to any kind of serious alternatives, especially one that either economically or ideologically presented a significant challenge, is bound to not be positive.
I was just wondering what LWer thoughts are on this matter? Also has there been any discussion of seasteading in the past that I've missed? Also I'm wondering if anyone would hazard to perhaps offer a prediction or judge how likley this is to succeed (maybe on predictionbook)?