Hacker News Reader

Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

Clean water shouldn't be à commodity like any other, but it's easy to imagine a system where luxury water use above a certain limit is charged at high or even progressive rates.

Also, if there is a shortage of water then impose some limit, and if there is no limit then the shortage can't be that severe..

View on HN

Clean water certainly should not be a commodity like any other. It should not be allowed, for example, for someone to corner the market for water. I would say water is in fact a commodity _unlike_ any other.

Are there commodities where you do think people should be allowed to corner the market?

I don't particularly see a problem if someone wants to corner the market on pork bellies. It's tasty, but entirely non-essential.

Corner the market on water? One of the most common compounds on the planet earth?

The price of metered water in San Francisco is $5.45 for 748 gallons. I am having difficulty imagining how any conceivable price increase could either deny the poor enough water to drink, cook and shower or open the door to a monopolist to seize control of all of it.

> One of the most common compounds on the planet earth

If the price of water coming in the one pipe that leads to your hose would be hiked by 100x, you would proably be upset. It's both very difficult to provide a functioning market because of infrastructure, and people would pay almost infinitely for clean water.

Maybe. I'd have to think about it. Water is singularly unlike any other commodity, though, because of its positive external effects on society. As an example I give you sanitation. Do you want to ride on a bus full of people who do not all have running water at home, for washing their hands? Probably not.

The most obvious case is patented drugs. As that's the point of patents in the first case.

I'm not sure that could be considered a commodity. Then again, a patent is a way to control the market to such a degree that something can't even become a commodity, so I guess it works in that sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com