this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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If this was downtown or at parks I can kinda see them providing something. Knowing this is likely at a university library or building its just removing access that was already there.
Fuck that. If it's downtown or at a park the fucking municipality can afford $1.99/mo
We need more public facilities. This privatization bullshit can kick rocks
The heart of what you're saying is right, but it isn't 1.99, it's 1.99x whatever their expected ussage/power/maintenance metrics are.
No, it's just what the usage/power/maintenance is. It's not $1.99 times anything. $1.99 doesn't enter into it anywhere. $1.99 was made up out of the whole cloth.
Right this is what I really mean. It's a trivial cost in the grand scheme of things for a municipality to provide public drinking fountains. This shouldn't be outsourced to a for profit private enterprise.
It's going to sound like I'm defending them in some way, which I'm really not because the whole thing is stupid, but they're not charging for the drinking fountain they're charging for the cold filtered water, which is going to incur some kind of power and maintenance cost that's while negligible at scale is beyond the norm. Room temperature tap water is still free here.
Sorry I really hate this line of thinking.
I also hate privatising costs for social services so we're in agreement on that....
... but no cost faced by the municipality is trivial. They correct taxes to pay for it. You can go to the meetings and have your say in how it's spent. More water fountains means more money.
If it were up to me we would increase taxes so we could have all the fountains.
I don’t think the thing costs only $2 to install? $2 price per liter of refrigeration on your water does not imply the the system costs $2
Refrigerant and filter systems need to be powered, replaced and maintained, that DOES cost money. What math, if any of substance, was applied on top of that cost to reach the subscription price is debatable. Though perhaps ironically, if they didn't expect many people to actually bite, then the cost per user would end up being abnormally high.
Refrigerated water fountains have been existing in parks, schools, libraries, and public buildings for decades with no on-demand cost to their end users. Our tax dollars paid for them easily and the cost is obviously trivial compared to everything else your local or state government spends money on.
There is no valid justification for this. It's just greed.
Thank you for stating the obvious. I fucking hate this future where even the basics of the past are starting to seem unreal. Little gray cubes with a wide bar you push and out comes cold water from a spout at the top; used to be everywhere outdoors growing up.
Realistically the cost of filtration is already covered by the municipal water system's budget, and the power and maintenance is already covered by the cities parks/public infrastructure budgets. So there is a small cost, but it's at a scale where it's negligible
Obviously it isn't, if it was there wouldn't be a user facing cost. The fact this is a private venture basically proves that wherever this is, the municipality or building owner is only committed to providing tap water (which we see here is "free") the cost is for the extra, private, infrastructure that has been added in order to provide cold filtered water. If you aren't US, I'll note that municipal water treatment and filtering vs the more "Britta" level implied here are entirely different and very much a thing for some people.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28specific+heat+of+water%2912.8K%281+gallon+*+water+density%29
200kjoules of heat must be removed from a gallon of water to cool from 55F to 32F (out of the ground down to pleasant drinking temperature).
Assuming a COP of 2 for your compressor (conservative), that's 100kjoules or 1/36 of a kWh.
High price for a kWh of electricity is $0.25 in the US. So for your $2 subscription, you can pay for 8kWh per month or enough to cool 288 gallons of water or roughly 9 gallons per day. More than anybody would rightly use.
What a fucking ripoff.
Not to mention that, in a place like a public park, 55F water is totally fine. It isn't the coolest most refreshing drink of all time but it's damn good from a public fountain on a 90F day.
I drink to hydrate anyway. The thing that’s satisfying to me is liquid going in. The temperature’s nice if it’s cool but if it’s cold I can’t drink the water fast.
You’re also paying for the installation of a refrigeration system right at the point where you want water.
Sure, but if everyone drinks a half gallon a day (still a lot for a normal person), that’s still 95% revenue which will absorb the installation cost quickly, and maintenance is minuscule on something like this.
Not to mention that since its subscription based, a broken dispenser is actually more profitable in the short term.
Take unlimited water and sell it
No it’s providing new access. Used to be, you had to take refrigerated water. Now you can have room temperature water which is superior because you can actually just drink it instead of having to sip it ultra slow.
The fact that it adds access to room temperature water doesn't change the fact that it removes access to cold water