Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aunche | Hacker News Reader

That's a good point. I know a lot of people who buy an unlimited Metrocard even when they don't get their money's worth out of it just so they don't need to think about paying for their subway fare.

View on HN

It's the same idea round buying a season ski pass vs pay each day. Or owning a car vs renting it for each need. It's not that its more cost effective it's the idea of having to do a mental hurdle every time you want to do something. The sunk cost is an enabler to go do something vs having to pay each time and get value out of that trip.

I've had this debate many times with friends. Am I hyper efficient with my spend? No, am I happy about my decision making process and/or less decisions to make? Absolutely.

If I see micro transactions for reading articles SMH. Conceptually I see where you are going but it would have really bad ripple effects IMHO.

Eh I think both the example you've provided aren't the best. A season pass breaks even at most places in 4-6 days if you're going at peak rates. A car rental is much more variable (parking, distance limits etc) but does have a higher mental load than a ski pass. Both would be pretty easy things to hit break even if you're going to be doing/using it. A metro pass is often a much higher break even point. Iirc, when I did the calculations for the NYC metro card, you broke even using your pass to and from 1 place if you left your place every day. Obviously that calculation is much different for each city, but they require a high number uses vs your examples.

The real reason to do a monthly unlimited is to not have to reload, especially when you are pressed for time.

Going forward, in NYC, I'm just going to use OMNY, since it's not in all stations.

Also supporting a system you appreciate has an added value, less hassle etc.

I'm one of these people. I have a BahnCard 100, an unlimited-access pass from the German national railway company that works on about 95% of all public transit across the country (all railway except for some lines that are only tourist attractions; and all subways/trams/busses/ferries in 120 large cities).

It costs me around 170€ per month, which is way more than I would spend if I bought just a subscription for my city's public transit plus train tickets as needed. But even if I pay a few bucks more, it's totally worth it because it changes how I approach travel. I can wake up in the morning and decide on a whim to do a day trip to a city 200 kilometers away for no extra charge. I can decide on Thursday evening to take Friday off and visit my parents (who live 500 km away from me) for the weekend.

(Side-note: Obviously a lot of this is not possible right now because of the plague, but at some point, all parties involved will be vaccinated and I can resume my travels.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com