"J. van Baardwijk" wrote:
>
> At 15:25 26-09-2002 -0500, The Fool wrote:
>
> >But the marketplace demonstrates you can compete with free. Purveyors of
> >bottled water do it.
>
> They do? How? Do you own a fresh water well? Is tapwater free in the US?
>
> Jeroen "Ban dihydrogenmonoxide!" van Baardwijk
1) Fresh water wells are not "free". You need to put labor into
getting the water out, or you need electricity, which isn't free, to
pump the water out. (Having lived in a house with a well with electric
pump for 10 years, I can attest to the problems that occur when the
power goes out for any length of time, and give advice on what to do if
you have such a setup and have some warning that the power *might* go
out.)
2) Tapwater isn't free, but it's pretty darn cheap compared to bottled
water.
3) If you're in a restaurant, they will serve you tap water without
charging you. They will charge you all sorts of money for bottled
water. (I recommend the water in Austin over the water in Round Rock,
something to keep in mind if you're selecting a restaurant around here.
Pflugerville water isn't any better than Round Rock water, either.)
4) If you're hanging around some place with a public water fountain,
that's free. But water varies from place to place, and even building to
building. For example, when I was pregnant and we went to College
Station for AggieCon, I ended up buying 2 1-liter bottles of water each
day to make sure I was drinking enough, because the free water fountain
had water that didn't taste like the water I was accustomed to drinking,
and it was worth the money to me to get water that I wasn't gagging on
every 100ccs or so. So, for all intents and purposes, I was paying for
what would have otherwise been free, but wasn't palatable.
5) If you're out shopping and need a fair chunk of liquid, it's hard to
get that from a water fountain easily. I pay $0.50 for a bottle of
water at the checkout line in the grocery store at times to save the
time I'd need to get that much water from a water fountain into me.
I probably spend too much on bottled water each year, but I'm paying for
the convenience more than the water itself, if that makes sense.
Julia
who *really* ought to go start that laundry....
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