Be Glad It Isn’t Free

People who think a lot about economics often have reactions that strike others as unusual.

For example, I recently finished registering for a 10k run in Astoria, Oregon. As part of the registration process, you had to select when you’ll be picking up your race packet (a prepacked bag that would have, among other things, your race bib with a built in time tracker). There were a few windows of time available in the few days leading up to the race, along with an option to pick it up on the day of the race on-site. This last option came with a “convenience fee” of $25 dollars or so. And as soon as I saw that you had to pay to pick it up at the most convenient time and place, my immediate reaction was, “Oh, that’s nice.”

My reasoning was along these lines: Thousands of people run in this event each year. The race organizers have to get all those people set up and ready in a fairly short time on the morning of the run. Encouraging people to already have their race packets picked up and ready to go before all this initial herding of racers happens would do a lot to make the process more streamlined. If all those thousands of people showed up to finally get their packets on the morning of the event at the same time, it would seriously gum up the process. So to minimize that, a fee makes sense. It limits the number of people who need to go through this process at the last minute, and those who do a late pickup will tend to be people who valued that option the most.

This is just one of a number of times I’ve found myself feeling grateful that some service or other isn’t available for free.

Another time I had this reaction was when I began working at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston several years ago. The MUSC campus downtown included a gym facility. Members of the public could get a membership at this gym but MUSC employees, faculty, and students got a discounted membership rate as a perk. I recall hearing a coworker make a comment along the lines of “I don’t see why we just get a discount. We work here, we should be able to use the gym for free!” But I was glad it wasn’t free. MUSC has tens of thousands of employees, students, and faculty. You don’t want to go to a gym that tens of thousands of people can drop into any time for free! Even with the fee, it was usually pretty packed. Making it free would have just made it unusable.

One other easy example that comes to mind is airport parking. Any time I have to fly out of Minneapolis airport and leave my car there, I usually have to go up and down the lanes of the parking garage several times to find an open spot. If people could just park their car at the airport and leave it there for free, finding a parking space would go from the realm of from slightly arduous to requiring divine intervention.

There are two different questions I think people can easily conflate. The first question is easy to grasp: “Would I like it if I, personally, could get this for free?” (Answer: Yes, obviously!) But the second and very different question is, “Do I want to live in a world where everyone can lay claim to this, for free?” The answer to that question is almost always an emphatic no.

When I get something I really value, and that benefits me in a big way, my reaction is to be genuinely and deeply grateful that I paid for it and that it wasn’t available for free. It’s just one of the ways that understanding ideas like trade-offs and opportunity cost and scarcity can broaden your vision and enhance your experience of gratitude. And I think that’s something the world can use a little more of these days.