2/04/2008

Choking the toilet

There was this solitary toilet next to a big restaurant. You can imagine what it was like when the customers are all full, belly like 48 gallon drums. All will head to the toilet at the same time. Sure jam. Big queue, long queue. The the jamban jaga got smart. In order to reduce the number of people queuing up, he raised the entry fee to the jamban. He solved the long queue problem. But there were no jamban around. Not his problem. These overfed people must find another jamban or go to the backlanes.

5 comments:

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

> These overfed people must find another jamban or go to the backlanes. <

Nonsense. All therestaurant has to do is to build more toilets. If they are a big, profitable restaurant, this wouldn't be a problem.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

but some owners may not want to provide extra toilets. there is cost involved. and they can charge more for the existing toilets. sell toilet papers also.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

That's the beauty of the free market: owners who don't attend to their (sovereign) customers' best interests, will lose business to their competition.

Since no one is forced to patronise any particular restaurant, they will patronise the ones they feel (on an individual level) offer the most value for the money the customers have to "give up" in exchange (free-trade) for restaurant services and food.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

what if there is only one restaurant?

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

There is a saying: "hypothetical situations are forced illusions".

For the sake of "argument" you can consider a case of only one restaurant in existence.

When you come back to reality, you know from observation and experience that this is never the case. There is always more than one restaurant.

But say for argument, we are in the middle of nowhere - a desert - and there is only one restaurant. Then they have a "monopoly" - but not in the true sense because you, the customer, has got to make a VOLUNTARY CHOICE to be in the desert, and by making that choice have implicitly agreed to expose yourself to whatever the restaurant does or does not do.

And you still have a choice not to patronise the restaurant, and go hungry or seek other alternatives.