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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

Low margin? My wife switched to La Croix which seems to be the new popular water drink around here. It's easily 3x the price of Coke.

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Apart from signalling that you have too much money and don't give a crap about the environment, why would anyone drinking just water buy bottled water every day instead of a Camelbak or Nalgene or Bobble bottle once a decade, and then drink tap water? Or even a Bkr if you're very fashion conscious? Is US water quality really that bad?

Edit: and if you need sparkling water, why not get a Sodastream or equivalent?

La Croix is sparkling water with very subtle natural flavoring.

As for Sodastream, I've seen lots of folks say that they did the math and found that it wasn't any cheaper in the long run -- or was just barely so -- once you take the cost of the CO2 into account. There are still environmental reasons to get a Sodastream, of course. But if it's not any cheaper and requires learning to use a new contraption and making sure you don't run out of CO2, I think it's easy to see why many people just continue to buy the cans. Plus a Sodastream is a much larger up-front investment, and what if you end up not even liking the flavors?

For what it's worth, La Croix is roughly the same price as name-brand soda like Coke where I live.

I had a Sodastream, but I just didn't like it as much a La Croix. The cost difference isn't large either (I pay about $6.75 for a case of 24 La Croix at Costco). The biggest decider for me is simply counter space. The Sodastream crowds my counter, and I don't have a convenient place for it in the cupboards.

It's much more convenient though. Hauling liquids isn't fun, even though I live just a block from a grocery store.

Because la croix tastes amazing, their bubble size is different (and better) from soda stream with no work, and I can put an entire case in the fridge to be ready and cold on demand.

What changes bubble size?

Water "hardness" ie the amount of minerals dissolved in the water if I'm not mistaken. I've got a modded out soda-stream that uses large paint-ball CO2 tanks and I've tried lots of different things. Water run through a "softener" is very different than not and distilled is much more different than both of those.

LaCroix is the methadone for the soda addicted.

Sodastream vs. seltzer is not cost efficient.

https://www.sodastreamusa.com/60L-Carbonators-C38.aspx 60L for $29.99 (ignoring fixed cost of hardware and marginal cost of tap water)

https://shop.fairwaymarket.com/product/vintage-sltzr-1lt-pla... 1L for $0.50 (in Manhattan)

Possibly more environmentally friendly, though that's not obvious.

CO2 is cheap, but not when Sodastream sells it. People that want cheap carbonated water have modified their sodastreams to accept larger beverage-store CO2 bottles:

http://www.frugalwoods.com/2014/08/11/how-to-cheap-homemade-...

Higher fixed costs, but if you drink a lot of carbonated water, you quickly recoup it.

I don't understand either, I am not American. Perhaps their water is swimming-pool ready and not human consumption ready as in civilised countries? Everyone has his own priorities.

With a couple high-profile exceptions, it's all human-ready. We all just have different preferences, and complain when we move somewhere where the water doesn't taste like "home".

It's quite bad, but consumer water filtration devices are cheap and plentiful. I personally use a water filter at home and work, and carry a decent quality bottle everywhere with me, so I'm not sure why others don't go that route. I have to assume it's just another example of rampant American consumerism.

Is it?

I drink tap water in the SF Bay Area. It's excellent. (Hetch Hetchy). But even in the south bay, it's quite good.

San Diego water is also very drinkable, as is Los Angeles.

Most recently I was in Vegas and Ohio, and in both places, while the water was not as good as it is at my house, it was perfectly fine.

SF water is clean and good tasting, but many of the 70+ year old buildings have corroded water pipes that can add foul tastes and sediment to the water.

I would disagree about so cal. Their water tastes bad. Not Michigan lead-contaminated bad, but SF water blows it away.

Yeah, in many places, it's pretty bad.

> Yeah, in many places, it's pretty bad.

Can you please quantify that, because I'm still convinced it's mostly marketing [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water_quality_in_the_...

Edit: Regulators have started to take lead testing more seriously during the Flint crisis. Stricter testing is starting to show a lot of problems. This is about 20 miles south of where I live http://nhpr.org/post/manchester-schools-shut-drinking-founta... and this about and a bunch more, with actual numbers at the bottom http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/03/17/drinkin...

What does condensation have to do with the public water supply?

Eh, I don't feel like defending my anecdotes. Edited to stick to the numbers.

It's quite safe to drink, there's just not really any standard for flavor.

So if a town gets water from a well, they may not be doing a lot to remove an off mineral flavor or whatever.

I love that the American solution is not to try to bring the municipal water up to standard but to spend 10x-100x on bottled water.

It's already up to standard, people are largely just not rational.

My home city ranks near the top of any "best tasting drinking water" poll I've seen, and people still complain and buy bottled water. It's ridiculous.

The vast majority of citizens in the US are served by perfectly serviceable potable water they just turn their noses up at it.

The standards regulate things that will actually hurt you, not things that will make the taste go off.

The reason is that you can buy a case of clean bottled water for ~$1-2, providing you clean, good tasting drinking water for a month. This is something even people at or below poverty level income can afford and dramatically increases quality of life.

The individual has little to no control over the water or pipes that runs the water to their home. It is a take it or leave it situation. If you own your home, then you might be able to install a water filtration system. This might be at the very least $200+. Okay. That doesn't compete with the price of bottled water. What about just a water filter pitcher? $30+. Well, now that's far more reasonable, but still represents 20-30 cases of water.

Bottled water IS the cheap, easy option. Should people fight and vote for infrastructure improvements so that they have clean, good tasting water? absolutely. But while we're working on that, we'll drink bottled water.

$1 for enough bottled water for a month? Where did you get that number from?

We were living away from our home (and water filter) for a few months and bought the cheapest bottled water we could. It was $1 per gallon. Where is this magical bottled water plant that 60 gallons of water for $1.

I'm going to concede on the particulars of how low the price was because it must have been just a killer loss leader in-store sale at walmart - the cheapest I can find now online is ~$7 for the same flat of 35 17oz bottles.

I am, however, going to disagree with how much water. 2 gallons of water for a single person each day seems to be more than just excessive for drinking water. Even if I was drinking 17oz each primary meal and another upon waking and upon going to sleep, that still leaves 171 oz remaining to reach 2 gallons.

Actually me and my wife went through approx 1 gallon per day, not 1 gallon per person, so approx 0.5 gal per day per person.

We use an RO filter, provides amazing taste.

Friend of mine spent 6 months sailing from Europe to and around the Caribbean and back. He said they planned with 0.8 gallons per person per day. That has some safety margin in it, of course, so 0.5 gal per day per person is likely bang on actual consumption.

When you're thirsty the bottle of water is a pretty good solution. Bringing the municipal water up to standard feels like it would be a multi-year project from investigation, lobbying, running for office to make the changes if no other candidate will, giving up all the time that takes as well.

I'll buy a bottle of water and vote.

Where I live it happens to taste fine but my relatives live off well water and I always pack a case of water when visiting.

The government is evil and companies can do no wrong ;)

Makes a whole lot more sense to maintain separate filters for drinking water. How can we expect our toilet and shower water to be the same quality as drinking water. A filter for drinking water makes a lot more sense.

Uh where are you buying your La Croix? They are the same price on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Croix-Naturally-Essenced-Sparkling-Va... https://www.amazon.com/Coca-Cola-24-12-Fl-Cans/dp/B0012QO8AY...

Edit: As people pointed out Amazon has shitty prices on these things. Still in my experience La Croix is about the same price as Coke when you compare them both on sale or both not on sale.

Well, I'm certainly not buying it from here. $21 for a case of Coke?

When they're on sale I can find cans of La Croix Grapefruit 12oz for about $4/8pk ($0.50/can). And I just bought Coke 12oz cans on sale for $2.25/12pk ($0.1875/can).

Yeah, that's a pretty horrible price. Usually at least one of the local pharmacy or gas stations will be running a special on coke along the lines of 3x 12pk for $12 or so.

Even at full retail a 12er is usually something like $6.99

Consider getting a carbonator (such as the Sodastream) and whatever she wants for her own flavoring. The occasional CO_2 cartridge and squeezing out a slice of lime is likely cheaper.

My point was merely to highlight the fact that the newer sparkling water drinks were priced equal to or higher than the HFCS-based sodas. And the sparkling water drinks have even less ingredients than the HFCS ones.

My intent was not to spark a class war over water quality, Nalgene bottles, and SodaStreams. I'm fully aware of the cost differentials and am not complaining.

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