[tomjen]

People often come up with water as an example, but it fails on many levels:

In many cities the "native" water is full of chlorine If you travel to a foreign country, you may not be able to drink the native water at all If you are not at home, getting water may not be possible unless you by it in bottles. Bottles enable you to carry around water, which is useful for car trips, etc.

[patio11]

On the contrary, if smart people can be convinced to ignore the practically inexhaustible and freely available supply of water in every building in most first world countries, then I think the de-commoditization of water was an astounding success.

(I mention this because it is intellectually interesting to me, not because I hold contempt in my heart for people who buy bottled water, by the way.)

Incidentally: HN doesn't support unordered lists very well, particularly if you like starting them with asterixes. The best alternative I have for you is starting them with + signs and putting two linebreaks between points.

[dinkumthinkum]

I think this falls flat as well. Many people have tap water at home that is a) hard and/or b) doesn't taste very good. You can tell the difference.

[ori_b]

You can also buy a water filter, and get better tasting water extremely cheaply when compared to bottles.

[ahoyhere]

Yes - and I think that the number of people who buy bottled water exclusively for home drinking are vastly outnumbered by all of us who buy it when we're out because it's convenient and not full of HFCS/sugar/evil.

[wlievens]

For home use, one would use a filter can, at a fraction of the price of bottled water.

[run4yourlives]

One of the key things about good marketing is that when it works, you'll have people reiterating your talking points for you without even realizing it.

Case in point the above comment. Those of us in our thirties remember the world without bottled water, and life went on.