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Comment by anovikov | Hacker News Reader

Thing is, for it to truly stop an incentive has to be removed. It shouldn't be a profitable idea. A business open in a particular place has to be the most profitable business possible there. What's the problem if it's not the pub? Drinking rates are nosediving in UK, and that's a good thing, a generation ago half the country was spending their life sloshed days long.

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He's making it unprofitable by doubling the rent.

The pubcos have made it unprofitable by profiteering.

Neither of these are indicative of a free and functioning market.

Are you a sockpuppet for the other user here that wrote a very similar comment ?

But that is the same thing! The rent reflects maximum profit that can be extracted at a particular place. If some other business is able to pay the rent, the rent will be higher than a pub can afford.

No, it is not the same thing.

Money is NOT the entire (nor even accurate) scorecard for all things. The "free market" is not the best solution to all problems (e.g., start with the Tragedy Of The Commons, which "free markets systematically exacerbate).

Just because the external benefits of a more cohesive society and pleasant neighborhood cannot be full monetized does not mean they don't exist or there is not much more value there than appears in your idea of profit.

Tautologically using profits as the measure of value is idiotically reductionist.

>A business open in a particular place has to be the most profitable business possible there.

Why?

Because this is what naturally happens. The more you try to bend economic reality by forcing people to do less optimal things, the more the economy starts to resemble Soviet Union - i come from there and i don't want to go back. I agree, it is sometimes necessary, but it should be approached with great care, to do only when indeed absolutely necessary.

In a free market it WILL be, regardless of must or not.

You can debate if a business has cultural value beyond that (and I think they do) but that's not the reality of today.

I don't think that follows at all. If a business is on the area and successful, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is the most successful business that could be there.

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