[OscarCunningham]

The reason water is cheap is because it's plentiful; there's a lot of competition to supply it. But there's only one Suez canal and sailing around Africa is much worse. So you would expect Egypt to be extracting a significant portion of the value the Suez canal adds.

[mywittyname]

You're forgetting about the stick, namely, the literally armies backing these massive shipping companies.

If you're going to run an extortion racket, you need the power to secure yourself against the inevitable challenges to your station. Egypt is in no position to handle and armed threat from the US, China, or even most European nations. Their government would be toppled and a sympathetic one would be installed who would lower shipping prices to something on the cheap side of fair.

[goatinaboat]

Egypt is in no position to handle and armed threat from the US, China, or even most European nations

A little history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis

[kenneth]

The Suez Crisis's failure by the British and French had nothing to do with Egypt beating them militarily, and had everything to do with American pressure. One of the West's biggest strategic failures.

The Israel, British, and French insurrection completely dominated the Egyptians. The US wanted to carry favors with Egypt to prevent them to falling into the communist sphere, so it applied a pressure campaign against the British and French that completely wrecked the European economies (and from which they never really recovered). It didn't work, Egypt did not become an American ally in any meaningful way, and instead the West lost control over one of the most important shipping lanes in the world, turning it into a corrupt mess where you have to pay for passage in cigarette boxes and bribes.

It was one of the biggest foreign policy fuck-ups of the USA, in my opinion.

[wizzwizz4]

So… if somebody gets a monopoly on the water supply to an area, you think a price hike is reasonable?

Oh, wait, water's already a monopoly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

[Dylan16807]

1. We're not talking about what's reasonable, but what's expected.

2. This isn't like a monopoly on water supply, because the ships don't have to go this way. To make the analogy work you'd have to add something like "everybody already has a well, but supplying tap water is cheaper than using a well". In such a situation, a water company that's maximizing profits would charge just a little bit less than using a well, and while it would annoy people it wouldn't harm them.

3. The government stops water companies from gouging for the good of the citizens, which isn't a factor here.

[wizzwizz4]

Everybody has access to rainwater, except the people who don't. I think the analogy works quite well re point 2 (though not point 3).

[Dylan16807]

We could argue about how fitting it is, but I'll just say this:

If we want to go with "everyone has suitable access to rainwater for important household use", then it changes the impact of the water company overcharging. It goes from despicable to mundane.

[perl4ever]

In the US there are extensive laws about capturing rainwater, whether you can use rain barrels, etc. although it's no longer prohibited in any state.

https://rurallivingtoday.com/homesteading-today/is-it-illega...

[OscarCunningham]

The subject was predicting the cost of the boat getting stuck by comparing to the known cost to Egypt. The moral aspects of the water situation don't transfer across the analogy unless you also think that Egypt are charging less than they could because they think they have a moral obligation to shipping companies.

[lizknope]

The houses just 100 yards away from me have wells for water. There is a large upfront cost of making the well but after that you have "free" water other than the electricity for the pump.

[fest]

In some countries (Latvia being the example I'm familiar with), water from artesian wells is considered a limited resource and it's taxed.

[perl4ever]

Yes, but you said it yourself, the value the Suez canal adds, compared to going the long way. It's much smaller than the value of being able to ship from A to B at all.

[ClumsyPilot]

There is no major city with two independant water supplies, with their own sets of pips, purification systems and suers. Thays what water supply means. So no, there is no competition, and a supermarket water bottle is not competition.