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Comment by loeg | Hacker News Reader

Or phrased another way: Consumers are willing to pay billions for nearly free tap water in bottle form. Why? Beats me.

You're buying convenience in a relatively sterile container, with refrigerated contents. Physically, that bottle of water is 99% identical to the bottle of Diet Coke sitting next to it, but the logic of that product is never questioned.

That's hardly true. People criticise soft drinks all the time.

In any case, the difference between a cake with arsenic and a cake without arsenic is going to be significantly less than 1%, but I'm going to make my decision based on that less-than-one-percent.

> People criticise soft drinks all the time.

For health reasons. They're very rarely criticized for their environmental impact, when they're impact is almost certainly greater than bottled water (since they're not just water and a plastic bottle, but water, a plastic bottle, plus sweeteners and additives).

Some schools have banned bottled waters but allowed bottled soft drinks.

I would question it if most people had a tap dispensing cheap Diet Coke at home. That's a strange comparison to make.

I think it's strange to not make that comparison. We accept the utility of bottled soda but not bottled water? What kind of fucked up consumerist world do you live in?

It's sweet and it has a taste that many find pleasing and it's hard to copy exactly at home, that's the added value. You might as well compare steak with tofu, cinema with sitting in a park, playing videogames with playing chess. These things don't cost the same thing even though they arguably serve the same purpose. Some people might prefer one over the other. Saying that soda is basically water is like saying that going to the movies is basically like sitting in a park for two hours.

Tap vs. bottled water is more perplexing because it's basically the same thing in both cases. It's more like going out of your way to go to a paying park instead of going to the one next door even though they're basically the same.

I hardly drink any soda by the way, so it's not like I'm arguing that they have great value.

I buy water bottles to have in my car and my gym bag.

I don't have a water tap in either place, so it's not an alternative.

I buy a bottle every few months, but I've found its's really quite easy to refill the bottle once it's empty.

discovering that I could REFILL plastic bottles was a life-changer for me.

There are other industries that are billion dollar plus globally that rip off consumers. Natural remedies and diet trends for one. Not saying it's good, but it happens.

Because Consumers are not rational and lazy.

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