[ruddct]

We don’t price much of anything like this, though? There are subsidies for low-income people, sure. But we don’t really do sliding scale payments for food, or public transit, or cars, etc etc etc.

Why does scarce road space in highly-congested (and well-connected) CBDs require a sliding scale when little else does?

[kqr]

> But we don’t really do sliding scale payments for food

But we do! When I was a poor student, I usually bought the bottom-shelf store-brand cheap pasta. Today, I look at a higher shelf and often get the organic high-protein stuff with fancier shapes.

It costs about the same per unit weight to make, but the latter costs much more to purchase. This is exactly a sliding scale that allows people who are more price sensitive to buy practically the same stuff except at a much lower price.

(Why do companies do this? It lets them expand their target market without getting total profits too close to the floor.)

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This is also why we have region locks on electronics and export controls on medicine: companies are selling literally the exact same stuff with different profit margins in different regions, based on their collective disposable income.

[leobg]

That’s an interesting take. And probably true. The pasta that cost three times as much probably isn’t three times better. But if you really want that 5% improvement in quality, you can get it by paying three times the price.

[hahajk]

It’s different than grocery stores and plumbers I think because roads are seen as a public good, and if they’re using space in a crowded city, that space was/is also a public resource. Since everyone contributes their individual sovereignty equally, there’s a sense that govt should serve everyone’s interests equal, as best it can.