The word 'free' makes us all happy and is powerful enough to distract your focus from anything, however seminal the work you are doing may be. What power does it possess so as to lure us into doing things which we probably might not think of, even in dreams.
Humans have an intrinsic fear for loss and a natural instinct of procrastinating or not valuing their time which drives them into taking improper decisions. Making something free gets us thinking that we are not going to lose anything but gain something in return, making us inclined to perceive it as a win-win situation. But the accountant in us forgets that we are investing our time in it which can't be valued in terms of money directly and momentarily, while making a decision, this seems a fair assumption but its long term effects might be costing us heavily.
Consider this example. Suppose that tomorrow one is granted free passes to go to a theme park like Adlabs Imagica. The word spreads faster than expected and you go over there and get a free entry. But you are so much taken up by that 'free' word that although you knew that free meant crowd, which meant huge lines and therefore limited rides to get into yet you go there and curse about the crowd for rest of the time.
Also consider that I come up to you and say I will give you a Dairy-Milk for Rs 20 and a Bournville for Rs 20. Be honest and decide which one you will choose. Now, I say, I will make the Dairy-milk free of cost. What would your decision be?
If I say jolly is a unit of measuring happiness having a Bournville makes you 100 jolly and spending 20 rupees decreases your pleasure by 30 jolly, yet the net pleasure value is 70 jolly. Au contraire, having a Dairy milk makes you 50 jolly happy and spending 20 rupees makes you 30 jolly less happy, net pleasure is 30 jolly. So Bournville is the apparent winner and I bet anyone will choose it.
What happens in the second case? The Dairy milk pleasure value becomes 50-0=50 jolly pleasure units but still, Bournville is at 70 pleasure units. But now, as per me majority of the crowd would shift to having a dairy milk rather than a Bournville for 20 Rs.
The word 'free' thus puts a blinder on our rational thinking abilities and this is what the businessmen take use of in getting us to buy things we don't want and doing things we never wanted to do.
It has got enough might to homogenize the society into a bunch of stupid people incapable to weigh the outcomes of their decisions and pressurize them into making them take the same.
So, the next time you come across something free, give another thought to whether it actually costs you nothing (especially time) and would really make you more hedonic than regretful of that decision.
Humans have an intrinsic fear for loss and a natural instinct of procrastinating or not valuing their time which drives them into taking improper decisions. Making something free gets us thinking that we are not going to lose anything but gain something in return, making us inclined to perceive it as a win-win situation. But the accountant in us forgets that we are investing our time in it which can't be valued in terms of money directly and momentarily, while making a decision, this seems a fair assumption but its long term effects might be costing us heavily.
Consider this example. Suppose that tomorrow one is granted free passes to go to a theme park like Adlabs Imagica. The word spreads faster than expected and you go over there and get a free entry. But you are so much taken up by that 'free' word that although you knew that free meant crowd, which meant huge lines and therefore limited rides to get into yet you go there and curse about the crowd for rest of the time.
Also consider that I come up to you and say I will give you a Dairy-Milk for Rs 20 and a Bournville for Rs 20. Be honest and decide which one you will choose. Now, I say, I will make the Dairy-milk free of cost. What would your decision be?
If I say jolly is a unit of measuring happiness having a Bournville makes you 100 jolly and spending 20 rupees decreases your pleasure by 30 jolly, yet the net pleasure value is 70 jolly. Au contraire, having a Dairy milk makes you 50 jolly happy and spending 20 rupees makes you 30 jolly less happy, net pleasure is 30 jolly. So Bournville is the apparent winner and I bet anyone will choose it.
What happens in the second case? The Dairy milk pleasure value becomes 50-0=50 jolly pleasure units but still, Bournville is at 70 pleasure units. But now, as per me majority of the crowd would shift to having a dairy milk rather than a Bournville for 20 Rs.
The word 'free' thus puts a blinder on our rational thinking abilities and this is what the businessmen take use of in getting us to buy things we don't want and doing things we never wanted to do.
It has got enough might to homogenize the society into a bunch of stupid people incapable to weigh the outcomes of their decisions and pressurize them into making them take the same.
So, the next time you come across something free, give another thought to whether it actually costs you nothing (especially time) and would really make you more hedonic than regretful of that decision.
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