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> It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. Does this guy really not understand the difference b

> It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. Does this guy really not understand the difference between someone asking for money in exchange for nothing as opposed to asking for money in exchange for something of value? If Coca-Cola was advertising a Venmo address to send them money in exchange for nothing it would be much more annoying than what they currently do.

amatecha 3y ago
Materially speaking, there's barely a difference. It's actually funny you mention pop/soda, because it's nearly free to produce. It's water with some flavour and sugar, in a plastic or glass bottle.
- leetcrew 3y ago
  this is kind of disingenuous. the "bill of materials" for a bottle of soda may be measured in cents, but most of the $1.75 you pay at the store is the cost of getting it there and storing it. it's not a phenomenally profitable business. but besides that, people actually enjoy drinking soda. I certainly do from time to time, and I don't find the price unfair.
  - amatecha 3y ago
    Uhhh, yes, soda is phenomenally profitable, especially considering all the accounting loopholes to make expenses appear far higher than reality (not that this is unique to any given corp). > CocaCola revenue for the twelve months ending March 31, 2023 was $43.493B > CocaCola net income for the twelve months ending March 31, 2023 was $9.868B > CocaCola net profit margin as of March 31, 2023 is 22.69%. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KO/cocacola/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KO/cocacola/revenu... (note I also specifically argue that soda is nearly free to produce, not nearly free to store, or transport, or market, etc.)
    - greatwave1 3y ago
      > CocaCola net profit margin as of March 31, 2023 is 22.69%. Which means that it costs them $1 to produce every $1.23 of soda that you purchase. This is a long-shot from being "nearly free" as you claimed earlier, and materially different from "asking for money in exchange for nothing".
      - lostlogin 3y ago
        I’d like to know what it costs if you remove advertising and any other cost that doesn’t directly contribute to getting sugar water into the bottle.
      - amatecha 3y ago
        It doesn't actually though. Like someone else mentioned, they spend an untold amount of money on advertising. Like $4 billion in 2022, aka 10% of their revenue. https://www.statista.com/statistics/286526/coca-cola-advertising-spending-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/286526/coca-cola-adverti... That's not a cost to produce their product, or even ship it, or store it. That's strictly just "buying more customers", which has no bearing on my initial claim - that soda is extremely cheap to produce.
        greatwave1 3y ago
        Well if you want to ignore things like advertising and other administrative expenses (which are necessary when running a global beverage company), you will still find that their Costs of Goods Sold is 40% of their revenue: https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/filings-reports/all-sec-filings/content/0000021344-23-000024/0000021344-23-000024.pdf https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/filings-reports/all-s... Again, materially different from asking for money in exchange for nothing.
      - giantrobot 3y ago
        > Which means that it costs them $1 to produce every $1.23 of soda that you purchase. That's not correct. The $1.23 you pay at the store includes wholeseller/distributor and retailer margins. The wholesale price of that soda is maybe a quarter of the retail price. So for Coca Cola the bottle the production cost and shipment to a distributor was less than 20% of the retail price.
  - nneonneo 3y ago
    So why do fountain drinks also cost $1.50? Fountain drinks are shipped as concentrated syrup in boxes, costing much less to store and ship.
    - leetcrew 3y ago
      the concentrated syrup is indeed much cheaper to get to the retail location, and typically the retailer does make a large margin on fountain drinks. at a restaurant, this typically offsets the very tight margins on their other offerings, similar to alcohol. tangent: I've been to some restaurants that charge $5+ for a fountain drink, presumably to mitigate the lost profit on alcohol. it would be interesting to know why the business model is that way, instead of just pricing a moderate profit into both food and drink.
      - eszed 3y ago
        In regards to your tangent, it's because drinks are not the attraction, so people are relatively price-insensitive to (or price-unaware of) them. People think "I want a burger", price-compare burgers, and choose the place with the $5 burger over the place with the $7 burger. They don't notice that their side and their drink are each $1 more at the $5-burger place, and that both meals cost the same at both restaurants. Instead they think "geeze, I'm glad we went here. Who'd pay $7 for a burger? That place is a ripoff." That's only compounded by the tendency for drinks and sides to be impulse-purchases - easy up-sells that no one walked in intending to consume. And, if choosing the $5 burger has maybe embedded the idea that your place is "cheap", then so much the better, as that makes them likely to spend a little more than they would have at the other place: "I saved $2 on the burger, so I can afford an extra side!" Tl;dr: Commodity restaurants are trapped in an equilibrium where food has to be a loss-leader for sales of drinks and fries.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    The sugar lobby makes it far cheaper than it should be. Kind of funny seeing Americans subsidize their own diet destruction.
lolinder 3y ago
In context he's responding to the negative views that his fellow English expressed at the time (1920) towards people who were aggressively selling their services as tour guides in Jerusalem. He's pointing out that they put up with equivalently aggressive sales tactics in London, with the only difference being that it's the rich asking for more money rather than poor people trying to scrape by.
hnlmorg 3y ago
Hasnt there been numerous reports of Coca-Cola consuming so much drinking water in local communities to make their product that the locals end up having to buy Cola for hydration instead?
- amatecha 3y ago
  Pretty much https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-bottled-water-consumer-reports https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-b...
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  In some places local communities are also dependent on bottled water because their tap water isn't safely drinkable ... and it's not rare for Coca-Cola to own one of the major bottled water brands, as well as Coca-Cola being a popular drink itself. Everything I just described is true in Mexico for example.
jeegsy 3y ago
Its not really for nothing is it? You 'feel good' in exchange for giving money to a poor person. Isn't it the same feeling albeit for a different reason that Coca-Cola is selling?
34679 3y ago
Every fast food drive thru now asks if you want to "round up" your total for some charity of their choice. Not because they want to make the world a better place, but because all that "rounding up" becomes their charitable donation, reducing their tax burden without costing them a cent in actual charity.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  Ive been noticing this, as well as an increase of places asking for tips that have no business asking for tips. Any little thing to extract just a tiny bit more money from people I guess.

amatecha 3y ago

Materially speaking, there's barely a difference. It's actually funny you mention pop/soda, because it's nearly free to produce. It's water with some flavour and sugar, in a plastic or glass bottle.

leetcrew 3y ago
this is kind of disingenuous. the "bill of materials" for a bottle of soda may be measured in cents, but most of the $1.75 you pay at the store is the cost of getting it there and storing it. it's not a phenomenally profitable business. but besides that, people actually enjoy drinking soda. I certainly do from time to time, and I don't find the price unfair.
- amatecha 3y ago
  Uhhh, yes, soda is phenomenally profitable, especially considering all the accounting loopholes to make expenses appear far higher than reality (not that this is unique to any given corp). > CocaCola revenue for the twelve months ending March 31, 2023 was $43.493B > CocaCola net income for the twelve months ending March 31, 2023 was $9.868B > CocaCola net profit margin as of March 31, 2023 is 22.69%. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KO/cocacola/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KO/cocacola/revenu... (note I also specifically argue that soda is nearly free to produce, not nearly free to store, or transport, or market, etc.)
  - greatwave1 3y ago
    > CocaCola net profit margin as of March 31, 2023 is 22.69%. Which means that it costs them $1 to produce every $1.23 of soda that you purchase. This is a long-shot from being "nearly free" as you claimed earlier, and materially different from "asking for money in exchange for nothing".
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      I’d like to know what it costs if you remove advertising and any other cost that doesn’t directly contribute to getting sugar water into the bottle.
    - amatecha 3y ago
      It doesn't actually though. Like someone else mentioned, they spend an untold amount of money on advertising. Like $4 billion in 2022, aka 10% of their revenue. https://www.statista.com/statistics/286526/coca-cola-advertising-spending-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/286526/coca-cola-adverti... That's not a cost to produce their product, or even ship it, or store it. That's strictly just "buying more customers", which has no bearing on my initial claim - that soda is extremely cheap to produce.
      - greatwave1 3y ago
        Well if you want to ignore things like advertising and other administrative expenses (which are necessary when running a global beverage company), you will still find that their Costs of Goods Sold is 40% of their revenue: https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/filings-reports/all-sec-filings/content/0000021344-23-000024/0000021344-23-000024.pdf https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/filings-reports/all-s... Again, materially different from asking for money in exchange for nothing.
    - giantrobot 3y ago
      > Which means that it costs them $1 to produce every $1.23 of soda that you purchase. That's not correct. The $1.23 you pay at the store includes wholeseller/distributor and retailer margins. The wholesale price of that soda is maybe a quarter of the retail price. So for Coca Cola the bottle the production cost and shipment to a distributor was less than 20% of the retail price.
- nneonneo 3y ago
  So why do fountain drinks also cost $1.50? Fountain drinks are shipped as concentrated syrup in boxes, costing much less to store and ship.
  - leetcrew 3y ago
    the concentrated syrup is indeed much cheaper to get to the retail location, and typically the retailer does make a large margin on fountain drinks. at a restaurant, this typically offsets the very tight margins on their other offerings, similar to alcohol. tangent: I've been to some restaurants that charge $5+ for a fountain drink, presumably to mitigate the lost profit on alcohol. it would be interesting to know why the business model is that way, instead of just pricing a moderate profit into both food and drink.
    - eszed 3y ago
      In regards to your tangent, it's because drinks are not the attraction, so people are relatively price-insensitive to (or price-unaware of) them. People think "I want a burger", price-compare burgers, and choose the place with the $5 burger over the place with the $7 burger. They don't notice that their side and their drink are each $1 more at the $5-burger place, and that both meals cost the same at both restaurants. Instead they think "geeze, I'm glad we went here. Who'd pay $7 for a burger? That place is a ripoff." That's only compounded by the tendency for drinks and sides to be impulse-purchases - easy up-sells that no one walked in intending to consume. And, if choosing the $5 burger has maybe embedded the idea that your place is "cheap", then so much the better, as that makes them likely to spend a little more than they would have at the other place: "I saved $2 on the burger, so I can afford an extra side!" Tl;dr: Commodity restaurants are trapped in an equilibrium where food has to be a loss-leader for sales of drinks and fries.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  The sugar lobby makes it far cheaper than it should be. Kind of funny seeing Americans subsidize their own diet destruction.

lolinder 3y ago

In context he's responding to the negative views that his fellow English expressed at the time (1920) towards people who were aggressively selling their services as tour guides in Jerusalem. He's pointing out that they put up with equivalently aggressive sales tactics in London, with the only difference being that it's the rich asking for more money rather than poor people trying to scrape by.

hnlmorg 3y ago

Hasnt there been numerous reports of Coca-Cola consuming so much drinking water in local communities to make their product that the locals end up having to buy Cola for hydration instead?

amatecha 3y ago
Pretty much https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-bottled-water-consumer-reports https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/23/pepsi-coke-b...
jkaplowitz 3y ago
In some places local communities are also dependent on bottled water because their tap water isn't safely drinkable ... and it's not rare for Coca-Cola to own one of the major bottled water brands, as well as Coca-Cola being a popular drink itself. Everything I just described is true in Mexico for example.

jeegsy 3y ago

Its not really for nothing is it? You 'feel good' in exchange for giving money to a poor person. Isn't it the same feeling albeit for a different reason that Coca-Cola is selling?

34679 3y ago

Every fast food drive thru now asks if you want to "round up" your total for some charity of their choice. Not because they want to make the world a better place, but because all that "rounding up" becomes their charitable donation, reducing their tax burden without costing them a cent in actual charity.

bluefirebrand 3y ago
Ive been noticing this, as well as an increase of places asking for tips that have no business asking for tips. Any little thing to extract just a tiny bit more money from people I guess.