5 ms·

I'm a fan of paying for stuff. I understand that some people can't, and they need to be accommodated. But I think things are better when people who can pay, pay

I'm a fan of paying for stuff. I understand that some people can't, and they need to be accommodated. But I think things are better when people who can pay, pay. Subsidies can be fine, but free is often a bad idea. When you pay money, it's a vote to invest more in and maintain what you are using. It also gives you some stake in it to use it appropriately, and not do absurd things just because there's no cost. Community college (in the US) is a great example. It works well, and it's cheap and subsidized (generally the cost doesn't stop lower-middle class people from attending). People go there to learn, teachers are there to teach. If we make it free, it will ruin it.

Guthur 5y ago
People will pay, just indirectly. Pricing is a great signal for economic optimisation but if there is really nothing to be optimised as these services essentially run as monopolies then maybe this approach on balance comes out better for all.
- tjansen 5y ago
  "People will pay, just indirectly." Exactly, but indirect payment doesn't add friction. It depends on what you want to achieve, but limitless use of public transport isn't all good. For example, in many cities public transport operates at full capacity, at least in some hours. If free unlimited use results in even more passengers, it depends on where these additional passengers are coming from. If most of them were previously driving a car, you are reducing the number of cars. But if most didn't travel at all before, you may actually increase the number of cars, because some people won't like the crowds and switch to using cars.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Right. There might be saturation at peak times, but the rest of the time; just make the system free. It might even improve the peak time situations, reducing the need for more expensive investments to improve them.
martimarkov 5y ago
But we have also seen countries with free higher education and that has not be ruined, has it?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
soperj 5y ago
You pay more (in the US) per person for medicare and medicaid than Canada does per person for the entirety of our socialized health care system. $11,500(USD) per person vs $7000(CAD) per person.
londons_explore 5y ago
Remember that there is non-monetary cost to transport systems. People perhaps commit an hour of their time or more to planning and taking a journey. For most people, that cost is far more than the $3.50 ticket price.
moksly 5y ago
I prefer cooperative ownership. It’s a nice mix of public sector and private sector benefits, keeping the competition without extracting as much of the profit as possible for investors. For things like waterworks, internet, power and trains I never really understood the privatisation. I mean, I sort of understand I on paper. Public procurement is supposed to keep things great and cheap because there is some competition as different companies can bid to win the temporary monopoly every X years. The result is almost always both poorer quality and often also higher expenses in the Danish public sector however. A good example is how we privatised elderly care, which made a ton of small businesses flourish, but because it’s a required care it also caused a looooot of extra cost when these small companies went bankrupt, which happened to be extremely often. You could have 5 companies going bankrupt on a Friday, but that doesn’t mean the elderly citizens they take care of no longer needed medicine, so the public sector would need to find immediate replacements until a new regular company could be contracted. Getting people “right now” is extremely expensive. Anyway, public transportation in Europe is already extremely public, even if there are private companies involved, it’s still the government paying them to operate and not the other way around. So ticket price is really just a matter of deciding what you want it to be. Making it feee will cost the government very little in terms of tickets. It’s biggest loss might actually be from lower fuel taxes because people drive less.
ookdatnog 5y ago
I think one of the main arguments for free public transit is that it has large positive externalities, that is, it benefits those who do not use the system. Whenever people switch from using cars to using public transit, you get - a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions - increase in local air quality - reduced noise - less congestion, smoother traffic for those who still travel by car (and this indirectly also reduces emissions) - fewer accidents So it might be a worthwhile goal to strongly encourage people to use public transit, even if you don't use it yourself.
csomar 5y ago
People who did not witness how dangerous such schemes are, will probably not understand until they live through it. It's a popular scheme (heck, even wealthy software dev in HN like it) and very easy to pass, democratically speaking. Price voting is the difference between communist and capitalist societies. If you offer free public transportation, you kill any potential initiative to create alternate transportation and even can hurt individual transport; making the state a de-facto monopoly over transporting people. The natural evolution of such bureaucratic systems, is that they'll target something else next time (free healthcare, free books, free whatever...) as it expands their sphere of power and influence further. Soon, you have a huge bureaucracy that controls large parts of your economy which is impossible to change since the leaders of such bureaucracy are now running the country. They are also demanding higher pay, more benefits, and less working time. Your economy stagnates, the service gets worse as there is no competition, tax revenue is down and a large deficit/debt starts growing; and it's only a matter of time before the whole system collapses. Sounds familiar?
akie 5y ago
What you're advocating, without realizing it, is a two-tier society where rich people get all the good things, and poor people have to make do with the leftovers. In my opinion, that's a terrible way to run a society. I believe it's better for everyone if those who can pay make sure that *everyone* has decent or good things, instead of a few having excellent things and the many having mediocre or bad things.

Guthur 5y ago

People will pay, just indirectly. Pricing is a great signal for economic optimisation but if there is really nothing to be optimised as these services essentially run as monopolies then maybe this approach on balance comes out better for all.

tjansen 5y ago
"People will pay, just indirectly." Exactly, but indirect payment doesn't add friction. It depends on what you want to achieve, but limitless use of public transport isn't all good. For example, in many cities public transport operates at full capacity, at least in some hours. If free unlimited use results in even more passengers, it depends on where these additional passengers are coming from. If most of them were previously driving a car, you are reducing the number of cars. But if most didn't travel at all before, you may actually increase the number of cars, because some people won't like the crowds and switch to using cars.
Scoundreller 5y ago
Right. There might be saturation at peak times, but the rest of the time; just make the system free. It might even improve the peak time situations, reducing the need for more expensive investments to improve them.

martimarkov 5y ago

But we have also seen countries with free higher education and that has not be ruined, has it?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

soperj 5y ago

You pay more (in the US) per person for medicare and medicaid than Canada does per person for the entirety of our socialized health care system. $11,500(USD) per person vs $7000(CAD) per person.

londons_explore 5y ago

Remember that there is non-monetary cost to transport systems. People perhaps commit an hour of their time or more to planning and taking a journey. For most people, that cost is far more than the $3.50 ticket price.

moksly 5y ago

I prefer cooperative ownership. It’s a nice mix of public sector and private sector benefits, keeping the competition without extracting as much of the profit as possible for investors. For things like waterworks, internet, power and trains I never really understood the privatisation. I mean, I sort of understand I on paper. Public procurement is supposed to keep things great and cheap because there is some competition as different companies can bid to win the temporary monopoly every X years. The result is almost always both poorer quality and often also higher expenses in the Danish public sector however. A good example is how we privatised elderly care, which made a ton of small businesses flourish, but because it’s a required care it also caused a looooot of extra cost when these small companies went bankrupt, which happened to be extremely often. You could have 5 companies going bankrupt on a Friday, but that doesn’t mean the elderly citizens they take care of no longer needed medicine, so the public sector would need to find immediate replacements until a new regular company could be contracted. Getting people “right now” is extremely expensive. Anyway, public transportation in Europe is already extremely public, even if there are private companies involved, it’s still the government paying them to operate and not the other way around. So ticket price is really just a matter of deciding what you want it to be. Making it feee will cost the government very little in terms of tickets. It’s biggest loss might actually be from lower fuel taxes because people drive less.

ookdatnog 5y ago

I think one of the main arguments for free public transit is that it has large positive externalities, that is, it benefits those who do not use the system. Whenever people switch from using cars to using public transit, you get - a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions - increase in local air quality - reduced noise - less congestion, smoother traffic for those who still travel by car (and this indirectly also reduces emissions) - fewer accidents So it might be a worthwhile goal to strongly encourage people to use public transit, even if you don't use it yourself.

csomar 5y ago

People who did not witness how dangerous such schemes are, will probably not understand until they live through it. It's a popular scheme (heck, even wealthy software dev in HN like it) and very easy to pass, democratically speaking. Price voting is the difference between communist and capitalist societies. If you offer free public transportation, you kill any potential initiative to create alternate transportation and even can hurt individual transport; making the state a de-facto monopoly over transporting people. The natural evolution of such bureaucratic systems, is that they'll target something else next time (free healthcare, free books, free whatever...) as it expands their sphere of power and influence further. Soon, you have a huge bureaucracy that controls large parts of your economy which is impossible to change since the leaders of such bureaucracy are now running the country. They are also demanding higher pay, more benefits, and less working time. Your economy stagnates, the service gets worse as there is no competition, tax revenue is down and a large deficit/debt starts growing; and it's only a matter of time before the whole system collapses. Sounds familiar?

akie 5y ago

What you're advocating, without realizing it, is a two-tier society where rich people get all the good things, and poor people have to make do with the leftovers. In my opinion, that's a terrible way to run a society. I believe it's better for everyone if those who can pay make sure that *everyone* has decent or good things, instead of a few having excellent things and the many having mediocre or bad things.