mickeyd
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
We all like free stuff. We all hate it when free stuff is taken away from us. I still resent gas stations charging for air and water. It was always free when I was a kid then, all of a sudden,I needed to pay them for the code to the air/water so that I could top off my tires! Not fair!!!
I started listening to this NPR Planet Money show today and had to agree with just about everything that they spoke about. I had never heard the story of the Red Cross charging GIs in WWII for doughnuts before,but it sounds a bit like me and my problem with gas stations.
Episode 386: The Cost Of Free Doughnuts : Planet Money : NPR
I started listening to this NPR Planet Money show today and had to agree with just about everything that they spoke about. I had never heard the story of the Red Cross charging GIs in WWII for doughnuts before,but it sounds a bit like me and my problem with gas stations.
Chana Joffe-Walt/NPR Navy veteran Howard Dunn and Army veteran Tom Kaine remember when the Red Cross briefly charged servicemen for doughnuts during World War II. Many veterans still resent it.
If you think about every other price in the world — a dollar, $12.99 — free stands out.
Free has the power to make us do completely irrational things. It can drive us to break rules, and take risks we never thought possible. It can make us feel savvy and smug and exhilarated.
Everybody likes free. But free can be dangerous, too. Today's show is sort of the flip side of Ben's airline deal. It is what happens when you take something that was free — and you give it a price, a decision many Internet companies face today. That is a highly risky move, it turns out. And the damage can be enormous.
This week, free of charge, Chana Joffe-Walt and Alex Blumberg tell the story of the Red Cross and free doughnuts — that suddenly weren't free any more. It happened 70 years ago, and the Red Cross is still feeling the consequences.
Episode 386: The Cost Of Free Doughnuts : Planet Money : NPR