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Comment by huhtenberg | Hacker News Reader

Before we all get swooned by the effectiveness of his business model - most people probably bought this as a gag gift rather than because they believed in its medicinal properties. Because if they didn't, these sales would qualify as a scam.

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So where do you place Aethaer who are selling bottles of "fresh" air? http://www.aethaer.com/shop There are companies selling other nationalities of air. (It's bad enough just writing that out)

Aethaer seem to have grown since their little bit of viral fame a few years ago.

And let's not forget the billion dollar industry that is pouring tap water into a container and selling it for $15/gallaon.

Pepsi (Aquafina) and Coca Cola (Dasani) have an... "amazingly loyal" group of customers. They're buying soda, with everything that makes it soda removed, and paying the same price as if they bought actual soda.

> with everything that makes it soda removed

Everything that makes soda soda is bad for me. I could buy soda and remove that stuff myself, which is a fair bit of work. Or I could pay someone to do it for me. The fact that Pepsi does this at no additional premium over the soda is something I appreciate.

Or you could, you know, fill a bottle from the tap before leaving home?

There are quite a few places where you have to filter and boil tap water before filling a bottle with it.

Putting a simple filtration system on your tap is a lot cheaper than buying soda-priced water, though. And even if you do buy it, there's no guarantees about the quality of the water in the bottle.

Dasani and Aquafina are quite literally tap water, filtered, but not boiled, then bottled with a trace amount of salt added.

So for most people with safe municipal supply it's a complete waste of money no matter what Coke's marketing might try to imply.

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