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Comment by eldavido | Hacker News Reader

For an apt comparison, take 9 of your friends out to dinner and agree upfront that everyone will split the bill proportionally 1/10th. Watch how people think about spending, it really changes their utility calculus, from "Is this piece of cake worth $5" to "Is this piece of cake worth my 1/10th share of $5, or 50 cents?" Problem: everyone thinks that way, leading to a lot of wasteful spending, where "Wasteful" is defined as, "Things I wouldn't buy if I was paying for it myself".

Related: China is in the late stages of a credit-driven investment bubble where tons of construction (roads, houses, trains, dams) have been built. It's an open question whether it was "worth it", it probably produced a lot of construction jobs, perhaps some good infrastructure, and spread trade knowledge throughout the economy, but at a huge cost to their taxpayers.

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On the other hand, I wouldn't pay to build a road 10m long from my front door if I couldn't count on 100,000 of my neighbors to do the same so that I could get to work. And if I work for Ford, I'm not going to buy an iPad if I don't think that Apple engineer is going to turn around and buy a car.

> And if I work for Ford, I'm not going to buy an iPad if I don't think that Apple engineer is going to turn around and buy a car.

What? I don't make anything that you will buy. I can guarantee it. So why should I buy your products if you won't buy mine.

That makes no sense. The way money works, it doesn't matter who is buying from who, only that things are being bought.

But each person participating has to at least make a living, so it's circular to some extent (even if the circle is pretty long).

Yes. But my decision to buy from you is still independent (mostly) of whether you'll buy from me. The premise that cmsmith presents is absurd. I'm healthy, I don't need anything from the pharmacist. But I own a restaurant, and he wants a meal. Would he really not eat at my restaurant because I don't shop at his pharmacy? That's an absurd principle.

100% agreed. Otherwise we might as well get rid of money and go back to exchanging goods directly.

Interestingly, the way me and my friends do it is to split the bill evenly as long as there are no far-off outliers (in either direction). So the people who ate hardly anything pay their part, the people who ate a ton pay their part (there's usually a max total of one outlier), then the rest of us split what's left.

What I like to do is cover the entire total, and tell everyone to pay what they think they ought to. Maybe this varies a lot based on who you go out with, but this generally winds up with me paying less than my fair share (people round up in order to avoid being seen as stingy/nitpicky/shirking).

That might work for small groups. I've been at multiple dinners for 8+ people where, after we'd all "put in our share", the pot was still $50 (or more!) shy of the bill + tip. It's frustrating even as the non-host, since I know I carefully put in more than what my food + tip had cost.

Calculate the person who is systematically shorting you when that happens. It's probably only one person.

Interesting, my experience is the opposite. Everyone rounds up a little bit and whoever is paying ends up with an excess. This is in Japan though, so the social dynamics are different from the US.

It's definitely the sort of thing that will vary a lot based on the group. I'm also at a place where I can afford to spend $50 or whatever to gauge the collective trustworthiness of a group of people.

Note that figuring out individual "shares" is more difficult in the US than many countries, what with tax and tip not being included in the menu prices.

I agree. I do this with the caveat that I will call out somebody who shirks who can bloody well afford to pay.

Ever since grad school, we've always had a gradient of people from affording to eat out to not really being able to. As the generous folks covered me when I was poor, I'm happy to return the favor now that I'm not.

However, I'll generally make a spot check on someone who can really afford it but didn't seem to put in the right amount. If they don't pay enough for themselves, I'll give a quiet gentle reminder ("Hey, remember you did eat part of those nachos and had an extra beer. You might want to recalculate your portion.") and that generally solves the problem. Most people generally just forget as it's pretty easy to miscount in a shared context. And, if this is the first time and they drag their feet, I'll just pay it and talk to them afterwards. They may have hit a rough patch in life.

However, if the group gets to 15-20 people, I occasionally get someone who just systematically shorts things every time who is making more than enough to pay their share. If it's the third time it happens, I'm whipping out a calculator and calculating their portion exactly and publicly.

At that point, they either shape up when I'm around or they never show up again. Either solution is fine by me.

I learnt from your comment you roll in big groups. My groups usually <= 6...