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You wrote: "Because the definition of waste is the purchaser not getting any utility from the product, the economy has a net loss in wealth equivalent to what t

You wrote: "Because the definition of waste is the purchaser not getting any utility from the product, the economy has a net loss in wealth equivalent to what the producer expended in making the unused product." Would you consider unused cell phone minutes (that don't roll over) waste? What about any other monthly-commit-type product or service, where network/CPU/storage capacity is provisioned (expended by the provider), purchased by the customer, but unused - is that waste by your definition?

rz2k 14y ago
If you'd get something out of talking on the phone more, then you are forgoing utility that you've already paid for. However, if you place a call to a recording to a recording just to insure that you "use" all of your minutes, you get no more utility, but the phone company uses more electricity and a little more of its infrastructure is used up. Ultimately, if everyone did this, prices would increase to cover the greater expenditure of resources and labor required to supply the growth in the service being used. There is nothing wrong with that if customers are getting something out of the greater consumption, but it is a deadweight loss on the economy if they aren't. In fact, if they gain enough pleasure out of being spiteful, that is a justifiable reason, I merely suspect that they wouldn't actually enjoy it that much. As for monthly commit services, providers choose them over usage billing because it smooths out their capacity projection needs. If you're writing random numbers to /dev/null you probably don't get much out of it. On the other hand if you process bitcoins with unused capacity maybe you are better off, though providers may decide to drop you. Or, if you donate cpu cycles to folding@home you may (or may not) contribute more to the public good than the harm of the extra electricity consumption.

rz2k 14y ago

If you'd get something out of talking on the phone more, then you are forgoing utility that you've already paid for. However, if you place a call to a recording to a recording just to insure that you "use" all of your minutes, you get no more utility, but the phone company uses more electricity and a little more of its infrastructure is used up. Ultimately, if everyone did this, prices would increase to cover the greater expenditure of resources and labor required to supply the growth in the service being used. There is nothing wrong with that if customers are getting something out of the greater consumption, but it is a deadweight loss on the economy if they aren't. In fact, if they gain enough pleasure out of being spiteful, that is a justifiable reason, I merely suspect that they wouldn't actually enjoy it that much. As for monthly commit services, providers choose them over usage billing because it smooths out their capacity projection needs. If you're writing random numbers to /dev/null you probably don't get much out of it. On the other hand if you process bitcoins with unused capacity maybe you are better off, though providers may decide to drop you. Or, if you donate cpu cycles to folding@home you may (or may not) contribute more to the public good than the harm of the extra electricity consumption.