Does this article on the free rider problem tell us anything about why our “communist fruit bowl” failed on our hall on Mertz 1st South freshman year? I definitely remember there being spoiled fruit there often, and it might have been due to our “take a fruit, leave a fruit” policy.
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Well, I think people who say free riders are no problem are making a wager about the ratio of supply to demand. Sometimes supply is big enough to meet it, and sometimes it really isn’t.
I went apple-picking (and paid a hefty sum for the privilege) last fall. I figured I couldn’t eat all the apples myself, so I posted messages around inviting people to come and take as many apples as they wanted, thinking my bag of apples was so huge it could easily handle it.
It vanished within a week, and I barely got to eat 5 percent of the apples I’d picked. Next year I’m planning to pick only as many apples as I can eat, and eat them all myself (capitalist that I am).
Or, take me with you, and I can help you increase the supply 😀 You know I’m a fruit fanatic!
There was a fruit bowl on Mertz first south?
Did this last past the first semester, cause I sure don’t remember one being there the second (or was it just that no one told me?). The free rider problem is huge.. just ask Luke about free riding problems in regards to dishes during last summer. Then again, he thinks I’m overly anal about it.
Re: There was a fruit bowl on Mertz first south?
My freshman year there was, when I lived there, which would have been your junior year. It did kind of peter out in the second semester, actually, but the bowl was still there, just without fruit most of the time. Ha ha, Peter out….
Hey Danielle! Great to hear from you. Did you just get an LJ account to comment in my journal? How sweet 🙂