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The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

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Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#21

Post by danso »

hammock wrote: post #12

Once you lower the price of a product, you can never raise it again. I heard that on/around HN at some point and I haven't seen it proven wrong yet. There's a reason why chip bags get smaller, why new versions that seem identical to the old come out, why Tommy Hilfiger will never be a prestige brand again. And it's because customers don't tolerate raising prices.

This made me think of living in New York, during the $1-pizza-slice boom during the 2008 recession, and I was curious how those places were doing in more recent years. Looks like 2 Bros. Pizza (as of 2018) was still sticking to a dollar, but other places may not have:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evk75k/the-slow-death-of-...

> It’s a beautiful system, but it’s quickly vanishing from the city’s food landscape right from under our noses. The spots that used to churn out this style of pizza, many of which still have the awnings over them marking them as $1 slice establishments, are giving way to outside forces and silently raising prices to $1.25, $1.50, and even two dollars per slice.

Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#22

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

jankotek wrote: post #6

>The problem isn't the price Price was absolutely the problem. Soldiers were paid about $600 year. Not much for a job where you risk your life and dont have much of personal freedom or comfort. Free food was part of benefits. Charging soldiers for it seems ludicrous, they can not just leave, and go to nearest cafe.

> "Free food was part of benefits"

The Red Cross is a civilian organization that is not part of the army and was not, as far as I know, obligated to provide free donuts or coffee.

Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#23

Post by save_ferris »

RandallBrown wrote: post #13
blakesterz wrote: post #8

I witnessed something like this when I worked at a Six Flags amusement park (wasn't 6F at the time) that had a decent size water park. They did exit surveys every night, asking as many people as they could if things were ok, and one year they also asked people "Would you pay extra for the water park", it was free as part of admission. So they wanted to know if people would pay extra. People said yes. Something like 9…

A park in Indiana, Holiday World, did something sorta the opposite. They figured out how much the average guest paid for drinks, then raised the ticket prices that much but made all drinks free in the park. It was a huge success. People expect ticket prices to go up occasionally and they expect to be gouged for drinks. By getting "free" drinks, it felt like a huge value. (At least for me when I visited.) I bet it mad…

Ive been saying for years that airlines should do this. Add the price of an alcoholic beverage to everyone's ticket and then give those who want one a "free" drink. I never understood why they opted to go with ruthless cuts and declining customer experience.

Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#24

Post by mjhouse »

vmception wrote: post #5

Is there anybody alive that holds this grudge? Even with the article from 2012, I don't know Was this grudge instilled in children?

When I was in the Army, everyone hated the Red Cross, although the reasons shifted depending on who you ask. I've never heard about the doughnuts before. Most commonly, other soldiers claimed that they sold donated blood, although how true that is, I don't know.

Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#25

Post by socketnaut »

save_ferris wrote: post #23
RandallBrown wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A park in Indiana, Holiday World, did something sorta the opposite. They figured out how much the average guest paid for drinks, then raised the ticket prices that much but made all drinks free in the park. It was a huge success. People expect ticket prices to go up occasionally and they expect to be gouged for drinks. By getting "free" drinks, it felt like a huge value. (At least for me when I visited.) I bet it mad…

Ive been saying for years that airlines should do this. Add the price of an alcoholic beverage to everyone's ticket and then give those who want one a "free" drink. I never understood why they opted to go with ruthless cuts and declining customer experience.

Because most people search fares online and book the cheapest ticket.

Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#26

Post by dperfect »

It's true - charging for something that was once free can be risky, but it isn't always bad as some might believe. I have great respect for businesses that charge for a service that provides real value - even if it was once free. Often times (especially in the startup world), companies start out offering a free product (operating at a loss) to gain market share. It's not often the best strategy, but in some markets it's one of the few ways to break in and gain traction. Obviously, you can't sustain operating a business that way forever, so you eventually have to make up for it somehow.

Unfortunately, a lot of tech companies have (perhaps unintentionally) conditioned consumers to expect software to be free. The terrible consequence is that in response to that pressure, many companies choose ethically-questionable ways to make money when they need to, rather than simply charging a fair and honest price for their product (this includes selling users' data, overwhelming the user experience with ads, in-app purchase shenanigans, etc). Paying fair prices for things we use isn't the most appealing idea in the world, but (in my opinion) we probably need more of it, not less.

Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#27

Post by birdyrooster »

adventured wrote: post #14
oxfeed65261 wrote: post #3

NPR’s headline is misleading—the problem was not free doughnuts, it was charging (briefly) for doughnuts. In any case, fascinating; thanks for posting.

It's not misleading. Free doughnuts were part of the problem. The British soldiers were upset that they had to pay for their snacks while the American soldiers were receiving theirs for free, and it caused tensions. The free doughnuts helped to cause that imbalance and tension, which led to charging for the snacks.

In that case, the British charging for donuts was part of the problem too.

Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#28

Post by dmckeon »

adventured wrote: post #14
oxfeed65261 wrote: post #3

NPR’s headline is misleading—the problem was not free doughnuts, it was charging (briefly) for doughnuts. In any case, fascinating; thanks for posting.

It's not misleading. Free doughnuts were part of the problem. The British soldiers were upset that they had to pay for their snacks while the American soldiers were receiving theirs for free, and it caused tensions. The free doughnuts helped to cause that imbalance and tension, which led to charging for the snacks.

One wonders what the alternative-history narrative would be if the US had offered to pay the Brits for their soldiers’ snacks? Perhaps the common UK complaint about US soldiers in WWII would have been: overpaid, oversexed, overweight, and over here. :-)

Re: The Cost of Free Doughnuts: 70 Years of Regret

#30

Post by bigtones »

mjhouse wrote: post #24
vmception wrote: post #5

Is there anybody alive that holds this grudge? Even with the article from 2012, I don't know Was this grudge instilled in children?

When I was in the Army, everyone hated the Red Cross, although the reasons shifted depending on who you ask. I've never heard about the doughnuts before. Most commonly, other soldiers claimed that they sold donated blood, although how true that is, I don't know.

Yes, The Red Cross and almost all blood donor clinics sell their blood for hundreds of percent in markup. NPR also had a good series on that too: https://www.npr.org/2011/06/10/136931615/blood-bones-and-org...
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