Free stuff makes us irrational

by Anon84 on 3/29/2026, 11:25:18 AM

https://thehustle.co/why-free-stuff-makes-us-irrational

Comments

by: donatj

I feel like this fails to consider my own valuing of my time.Free Chocolate? Sure.13¢ chocolate? I've gotta try to make change? An awkward amount no less. 3 pennies? They are getting hard to come by. I didn't even want a chocolate. I don't have any cash on me. Do you take card?For instance, when I'm buying something off Facebook marketplace, if the items not a multiple of $20 bills and $50 bills, the denominations I can get from the ATM, I'm far less likely to buy it because I have to stop somewhere else on my way to the seller and try and make change. It's a pain in the butt.I have literally overpaid for things from marketplace by a dollar or two to avoid making change.But if my only options are 1¢ chocolate versus 13¢ chocolate, those are on way closer footing because either way I have to dig my wallet out.I'd still take the Hershey kiss though because it tastes better.

4/3/2026, 4:49:31 AM

by: psychoslave

Also people tend to act in crazy way as soon as money is implied.

4/3/2026, 6:26:35 AM

by: greenspam

I thought the article would be about something like when you get $100 free chip, you are much more likely to gamble and lose it; or when someone win a lottery, they would quickly spent the money compared to if they had earned the money with hard work.BTW, behavior economics people like DAN ARIELY in this article got bad reputation after being found fabricating data on the research about honesty <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1190568472" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1190568472</a>

4/3/2026, 6:04:54 AM

by: saghm

The study they cite seems to be leaving out something: are the participantsforced to make a choice, or could they choose to not take either? If I were presented with the two choices they give, I'd probably take the free one in the first choice but not take either in the second because I just wouldn't care enough to buy the single small piece of chocolate for either price. If I were forced to make a choice, I might pick the Lindt, but I'd argue that then their experiment isn't actually testing the same thing. A forced choice been two things isn't the same as two options that can both be rejected.

4/3/2026, 6:05:53 AM

by: chasebank

For anyone who thinks there is flawed logic in this I encourage you to study JC Penney's pricing strategy failure. People, by and large, are not rational.

4/3/2026, 6:05:54 AM

by: aschla

I'll never understand the people who stand in line for an hour for "Free donut day" or something similar. You really value a $1.50 donut equal to an hour of your time?

4/3/2026, 5:21:31 AM

by: KnuthIsGod

Classic economist fail.Fail to consider the transaction cost of paying the 13 cents for the Lindt, compared to the free Hersheys.Plus Lindt sucks.People give it me all the time as gifts. I give then give it away to random people like couriers.Godiva on the other hand...

4/3/2026, 5:43:26 AM

by: II2II

The trouble with those examples is they assume a motivation from a behaviour. Such is the root of so many of the world's troubles.

4/3/2026, 5:24:09 AM

by: littlestymaar

Behavioral economics have repeatedly showed that humans are consistently irrational when it comes to buying and selling stuff.Modeling humans as rational agents simplifies the economic reasoning and the equation a lot so it's not entirely worthless, but we must always keep in mind that this model is very far from the reality even if it's sometimes useful.

4/3/2026, 6:12:22 AM

by: mememememememo

I just don't like Lindt it is a matter of preference. Better to compare apples with apples. E.g. free kg of choc. 2kg for $1.

4/3/2026, 4:30:26 AM

by: ranger_danger

I was hoping this would talk about the hordes of ungrateful users demanding more and more free labor from the unpaid volunteers of open source projects, but I guess we still don't know how to deal with that properly.

4/3/2026, 3:48:23 AM

by: measurablefunc

Yes, it's well known that money & prices are what make people act rationally. We'd still be slinging mud & rocks if it wasn't for money & prices.

4/3/2026, 4:55:35 AM

by: ks2048

Dividing by 0 is very different than dividing by 0.0001

4/3/2026, 4:15:44 AM

by: 867762462f

One interesting angle here is how “free” changes not just user behavior, but also how builders interpret demand.In AI products especially, it's very easy to mistake “engagement” for “real demand” — because when things are free, people try everything. You get signals, but many of them are noisy or even misleading.I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the context of marketing tools: instead of optimizing for more exposure or more content, maybe the harder problem is filtering out false positives — figuring out where genuine demand actually exists.Otherwise, we might just be scaling irrational behavior on both sides: users consuming free stuff, and builders chasing the wrong signals.

3/29/2026, 11:41:05 AM

by: rheakapoor

[dead]

4/3/2026, 6:17:02 AM

by: agenexus