[topbarcolor]

It's not hard to find examples where this "rule" doesn't seem to hold. If you give me water heated for free, I may shower twice on some days, but I will not take infinite hot showers. If you gave me shoes that cause less ablation of the pavement I walk on, I wouldn't find other ways to remove the same amount of material, I would simply use up less resources wherever I go, being none the wiser.

[roenxi]

Actually, Jeveron's paradox would hold in the case you mentioned. Someone who gave you heated water would give it to you with an implicit quota otherwise a rational actor use an infinite amount of it.

If I actually had free no-holds-barred heated water, I'd run a pipe down to the local laundry and sell it at a profit. That is the rational response - the reason you don't see people doing that is because nobody offers free heated water at scale.

Your mistake here is thinking that resources have an implicit purpose (hot water => warm showers). If that were true, Jeveron's paradox would not hold. The paradox holds because once something becomes more abundant, it can be used for totally new activities.

[srtjstjsj]

If hot water were free, you couldn't sell it. There is a point at which people don't need more water; they aren't Singularity-minded water maximizers.

[Isinlor]

In communist countries, hot water was sort of free i.e. the cost was shared. People were having open windows during winter in order to have fresh air and heating in order to have warmth, also heating outside as a by-product :) . Hot water usage went drastically down in building where capitalist rules were introduced and water meters were installed per flat.

[rm445]

Do you think such a private individual's behaviour holds for all society?

First example: if lots of people had that free hot water, there would pretty soon be companies offering them money for the use of it. A bitcoin miner hooked up to a stirling engine under the hot tap, perhaps?

Second example: shoe materials are probably fungible for other petrochemical products. Reduced-wear elastomers might result in fewer pairs of shoes wearing out but higher demand in other markets.

[heavenlyblue]

The parent does miss the point of market saturation, but I think that's on purpose, since it makes the question more complicated.

For example, a reversal: nobody would drive their cars at all if the fuel prices would be the same for 5 seconds of driving as it is for a distance of 1000 miles now.