[sangnoir]

> Water, for example, is critical for life, but is basically free in most civilized areas in the first world because it is abundant.

I largely agree with your comment, but I disagree with this sentence. Water is almost free in most civilized areas because it's not subject to free market economics (for good reason). Basic water supply is usually provided by the local government (and this applies to places where it is scarce). If water were treated the same way health is in the US, its price wouldn't be anywhere close to free.

[barry-cotter]

Beer costs about $0.50 a liter here in Shanghai. At 50L a day, $25 that’d be $750 a month. Doable in most of the first world.

If you want to know the realistic upper bound for local price of water see how much Coke costs. That’s not something the government much concerns itself with anywhere. Or look at the price of water in someplace like Gurgaon our Dubai, cities so hideously planned that drinking water and sewerage are transported by tanker.

Water can be provided for very low cost even with less than competent governments.

[dzonga]

in your average walmart, a gallon of coke, soda is cheaper than a gallon of water.

[pluto9]

I don't know why rumors like this persist when they're so easy to fact check. When I go on Walmart's website, a 2-liter (~half gallon) bottle of store-brand cola is $0.87 and a gallon of drinking water is $1.00.

[jpxw]

Everything is subject to “free market economics”, no matter how much you try and force it not to be. It just happens that it’s very easy to “control” the price of water, because the supply far outstrips the demand anyway.