4 ms·

Because people don't value free things. It's why public restrooms are always disgusting.

• m463 5y ago
  I remember having an electric car when they were new. Some places offered free electric car charging, and there was always someone parked there abusing it. Meanwhile with only the most nominal cost, people would make better use of the resource allowing it to become available to others.
• PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > It's why public restrooms are always disgusting. Not really. It's not a question of value that causes public restrooms to be less pleasant, but simply one of cleaning frequency. Most people clean their own private restrooms/bathrooms/toilet (or have them cleaned) reasonably frequently. Increase the usage load for a public facility and you'd expect it to need to cleaning more frequently than a private one. And so, one does indeed find public facilities with sensible cleaning intervals that are often no worse and sometimes better than private ones. Most humans also have a somewhat instinctive distaste for urinating or defacating in a context where they can smell another human being (even one's own family!). Without very good ventilation, it's hard for a well-used public facility to avoid this, and that adds to the sense of "eergh, it's disgusting!" This is an issue, but again not one of "valuing free things". The worst public restrooms I can think of tend to be the most lightly used, where it's hard to justify the cost of sufficiently regular cleaning, and things just get unpleasant, again without any question of values or cost-of-use.