'THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH'
Which means that absolutely nothing is free - even though you might think it is.
Every action has a cost.
Cost in cash, kind or unseen.
Cost is easy. Money we all understand.
Kind. We can all see what happens to an object.
Unseen. At the scientific level this energy. It is neither created nor destroyed. We just move it around.
Cost and Value.
The value of anything is what a willing seller will accept from a willing buyer.
The cost of anything is the some of all the costs that have gone into creating anything. In the final transaction fro anything so long as the established value to all parties is greater than the cost then everybody is happy. The seller makes a profit and the buyer feels they have good value.
If the value is much less than the cost then the seller has a problem, generally known as a loss.
Free is everywhere. But if everything has a cost then free is when the seller is willing to take a loss. In the real world this is impossible, so free item A is usually part of the cost of paid for items B, C etc.
Understanding that free is generally a marketing tool is not to difficult. The game is to acquire more of the free that someone else. Of course, it is that someone else who is paying for your free.
Environmental factors are helping to increase awareness that free does have a cost. Air might be free at the point of use, but a cost has arisen from how the free air has been used. It is the same for all natural products whether animal, vegetable or mineral.
Now there is nothing wrong with free so long as everyone understands the truth behind the term. Choices have to be made in the provision of goods and services. So long as the communal choice is for free at the point of use that is fine, so long a everyone realises that somewhere down the line someone is paying.
I like free. I have a bus pass that gives me free travel on all local bus services in England and Wales. After 9:30 am on working days, any time at weekends and holiday. I do understand thought that the fare cost is paid from central government. It is to central government that most of my taxes go. So I am contributing to my buss pass.
