[mikeash]

Reminds me of a time I was searching for parking in downtown Washington, DC. Block after block was full. I eventually came to a street that had no cars parked at all. Jackpot, right? Must be some obscure rule prohibiting parking there. I kept looking. Still no luck, so I finally went back to the empty street. I carefully studied the signs and concluded that it was legal to park there. I got out of my car and paid. By the time I was done paying, the entire block was full of parked cars!

[refurb]

That happens in SF all the time. People will see a temporary no parking sign and drive on by. Half the time, if you read it, it’s either not in effect yet or has already expired.

If there are no cars there, people assume others confirmed you can’t park there!

[joncrane]

This is like the old adage. "If you truly believe in market efficiency, you would never bother to bend over to pick up a $100 bill because if it were real, someone else would have picked it up already!"

[hartator]

Except the market is very inefficient, blind, and poorly guided. It’s just always better than a central government.

[webninja]

Except sometimes you’re wrong and the market is right.

[angry_octet]

Or you come back to your car and the tyres are missing, or it's been towed because of street sweeping/snow ploughing...