Would You Pay for Air to Breathe?

[notimp]

Interesting. But not the same.

You dont have "premium water" at the water treatment level, its literally drinking water and non drinkable water.

So in terms of air purification that would be "breathable air" and "non breathable" air.

Paying for breathable air, people would understand - and it would be something they could be made to do.

In theory. In practice its probably not.

Key differences:

- If you dont have clean drinking water, impact is visible almost instantly - if you dont have clean air to breath, maybe after 50 years of your life (or you die at birth, idk - hard to meassure, hard to sell).

- You cant do it through "air purification zones" (analogous to water treatment plants), because they don't work economically (industrial large scale air purification devices (run air thorugh centrifuges to filter out big particles, its funny) do too little in regards to what they cost).

- And you can't "own" the treatment work, because the next gust of wind, will move your work further along..

So the common good perspective of paying for "clean air" treatment is never quite thinkable. (Call it clean air tax, and prep up your car industry with it - maybe... Not sure people would react well, though.. )

Now, if we get to "premium water" in the 'Coke business' kind of way (scam ), thats possible and thinkable (Airbars, canned air, ...), but people still arent dumb enough.

(The way Coke got people to drink bottled water, was to hand it out to students for free for a couple of years, so everyone else started to associate it with "intelligent people" and higher value than normal water. )

And selling air filters is a business already. You can buy those, if you think, that you need them.

Differences are to large.

Also there is no urgency. Air isn't getting worse im Europe or America, so there will be no rising demand. (Apart from making it a marketing bubble.)

Thats where the is this thread clickbait?! Sentiments came from.

 

[FAST6191]

Much the same as you have various voltages that most normal people would never see and industrial plants having their own substation then you do have varying water uses -- only suitable for irrigation, and plenty of places have additional user side filtration be all but mandatory (never had to only drink bottled water on holiday?).

It need not just be vanity either; earlier I mentioned CO2 concentrations and its effects on human cognition and other performance metrics ( https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1510037 ). Pull people out of a mental fog and they will often pay a lot to avoid slipping back into it. If the untreated air is still technically breathable...
You can also contemplate going the other way and having it increase performance over baseline or allow increased endurance -- I was watching American football a while back and plenty of presumably good shape American footballers were on the sidelines sucking on oxygen canisters. If that is not paying for air...
For decades now then fractional performance increases have been sought by people and companies (I have a whole manual from the 50s on just that subject for industry/manufacture, and the idea of automation goes back even further) and for the link above those numbers are anything but fractional. If I can get that sort of performance bump from a few filters and tanks of gas or extraction/concentration increasing devices getting plumbed into my air conditioning then yeah. Indeed sitting here contemplating this I am seriously tempted to add air conditioning botherer at levels enough to do for that of thing to my skill set.

Air in Europe and the US is maybe not going to reach China or parts of India levels terribly soon but I can see it, and if those pollution eating paving slabs become a viable thing "we will increase your tax so we can pay for those" will probably be a thing and that is paying by most definitions.

Certainly a lack of drinking water has a more immediate effect but I can't get to dismissing the comparison as

 

[notimp]

Much the same as you have various voltages that most normal people would never see and industrial plants having their own substation then you do have varying water uses -- only suitable for irrigation, and plenty of places have additional user side filtration be all but mandatory (never had to only drink bottled water on holiday?).

Bottled water on holidays is an edge case (digestive systems not adapted).

The question I'm after is, if you could sell it in tiers to entire societies, and the answer there rather is no. There you always would get back to basic needs, and not to quality grades. People would not accept quality grades in a basic needs argument. They would always default back to "is it breathable/is it drinkable" and demand from society to make this the base level.

It need not just be vanity either; earlier I mentioned CO2 concentrations and its effects on human cognition and other performance metrics ( https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1510037 ).

Now you are getting better at selling your premium product.

Now here are your analogies for todays life. Even companies with contracts with coke, to offer employees free softdrinks usually dont offer them their bottled water brands.

That has to do with the "being recognized as environmentally responsible" aspect, but in terms of motivation its actually the same we are talking about. There is a built in social contract, that even their employees, would go onto the streets to fight for the rights of other people to have clean drinking water, rather than to admit to their families at home, that yes - they are getting the premium water at work.

Same would happen with air, if you brand it (air in large buildings already is "internally purified" in some ways, so you've got me thinking there.. ).


Now if the argument is, if more people could be sold on brands for water or air. Yes. Just looking at foreign countries. But I think, thats correlated with education, and how low you set your base standard for drinking water / breathing air. So in the west - no.

Also companies wouldnt care for an elongated life of their employees so much (younger employees are cheaper.. ), so if you don't find a value add thats "performance related", you couldnt sell it to them either..

edit: And there is CSR (corporate social responsibility), which I refuse to think of as an actual "thing", but apparently is more popular with typical millennials, who follow brands on the instagram, because of it.

Also I hear big companies nowadys are stocking up in "ethics departments" so their projects dont produce the societal outfall, that made Facebook (the instagram company) look like total assholes, and this (premium air) would be a prime project for them to reject.

 

[FAST6191]

"and demand from society to make this the base level"
Yet many places add flouride at additional cost to the water despite it having no particular bearing on it being drinkable or not (instead it doing well for tooth cavities).

As far as bottled water then I have seen plenty of offices have a slab of bottled water, or those water canisters be delivered in, indeed probably more than soft drinks (usually nicely loaded with the sugar and caffeine a lot of people are rather addicted to). Indeed free soft drinks is typically the domain of trendy companies and US IT companies.

As far as companies go. If my 45 year old domain expert can have as much pep as the 21 year old with something to prove by some means then I will try to do it. As it stands many companies already weigh various factors (no kids, physically fit and willing to travel? I will take them over a fat slob that will be off ill a lot and has to wander off or can't travel because of some shrieking crotch fruit taking up their time if it works for what I need, on the other hand the former is more likely to say poke this). The potential for some of this is right up there with that. Whether air will be a notable component before life extension/rejuvenation products come to market and make those 45 year olds back into biologically 21 year olds I don't know.

As far as getting people to buy it. I would say it is not a matter of low education, indeed that would not help much beyond those seeking a fashion symbol. I give you my fancy mask and you find yourself far more able to concentrate, not being knackered at the end of the day, possibly sleeping better, feeling great... as a taste and those that value their mind will come flocking back aka the drug pusher model. You can probably find some company somewhere with two buildings - wire up one with the stuff talked about earlier to regulate the air and not the other. That stats will likely show any number of increased metrics if you do it right (you might even be able to use the vanity of the C level types to get it installed in the first place), and they are probably going to come back to you and you can sell others based on that study.

Society wide and selling tiers. We already sell premium transport, premium clothing, premium food, premium holidays, premium entertainment, electricity with any number of things like "generated from renewables",

 

[Alexander1970]

Here in Austria you have to pay in the meantime for a glas of "free" water from the waterpipe in an restaurant.

 

[notimp]

I agree with everything (there being possibilities, this being subject of potential debate), despite the "tiers on the societal level" part.

And one more thing.

(The ageist thing was a red herring. )

The premium food part also crossed my mind, but then we have food and public hygiene standards, that really make the upsell - pure marketing, essentially (I could list you the amounts of "superfoods" that have been refuted to have no noticeable impact on health in the recent past.. ).

On the societal level, I still think that people would not accept it, that their families would be worse off than them working at "designed air corp", if there would be a substantial (company specific value add) health benefit, that could be shown.
(Airfilters are not a hot seller in europe.. )

With air, theres somehow a creepyness factor thats immediatly attached to it.

Now if we are talking about nonethical use ('what if I could increase my teams productivity' without them knowing), I can see the argument there.

Same thing for the intelligence and education argument. The argument was not, that people wouldnt fall for brand effect, but rather, that they still would roam the streets in protest, if the "tierd system" woulndt also include their families. And neighbors.

First lung cancer case in any of your workers families, and you have a PR nightmare on hand. ('Am I not ill, because I've gotten premium air?')

This is almost a prime case for CSR, so the company actually engaging in acts that makes air quality better for everyone ("fake plant trees..."), should be picked up as more beneficial.

The argument is also, that the average human being will do that anyways.

But this relies, on air being seen as more of a common good than specific food, for example, I recognize that.

 

[FAST6191]

"what if I could increase my teams productivity' without them knowing"

Many things like this are done already without people knowing it. Ethics might get a bit more fuzzy when it comes to psychology and hard drugs but if you can demonstrate you are regulating your air to be that of a standard makeup or one recognised by medics then you are back to the same detection, sampling and systems conditioning protocols much like we already have (don't clean your AI and give people Legionnaires disease and you get slapped, mess up and swap an O2 cylinder for CO and yeah). At current prices for things then detection is going to be cheaper and cheaper, and probably nice and networked not unlike a security system before long. Or if you prefer do you think people magically decided to roll out those anti fatigue mats en mass one day or do you think they trialled it a few times first?

You would possibly get the equivalent of the anti vaccine cretins for your premium air but most things tend to be on balance of probability and we have decades of research on air quality/composition and its effects at this point.

I don't think people would care so much for society wide things -- premium medical care which goes directly to life or quality thereof already is a thing, and... I am sure you have seen Americans on the internet that earnestly believe nationalised healthcare to be really bad.

As far as a "creepiness factor" then more likely that is unfamiliarity. How many other things you take for granted today would a person of say 200 years ago think extremely odd?

I also forgot last time. If the water can be wasted so we have means of limiting use/discouraging overuse then what do vehicle emissions regulations, fuel composition regulations, extra taxes (red diesel is still diesel, just a different tax bracket), subsidised public transport and more all count as?

"The ageist thing was a red herring"
Was that in response to another post? You said younger workers are cheaper, I would contend that is far oversimplified and offered an alternative line of thought.

 

[notimp]

I'm coming from a use different kinds of smells in retail environments is known to me position - to raise peoples willingness to buy stuff (and I think the difference wasnt significant.. ), the rest is new to me. (I dont necessarily want to go into the deep end on that one.. )

On premium medical care we still have the interesting discussions ahead of us (personalized medicine, gene therapies, ...) in my country so far premium is mostly about waiting time, and certain drugs and treatments in certain cases - but those do not always seem especially beneficial..

Also talking about creepiness, ever stumbled into a transhumanist argument in that context? (Not a thing in the near to mid term future.. )

Yes, creepiness is unfamiliarity - but from a marketing/pr standpoint its still something that you have to overcome first, and hopefully some people will be vocal on the other side as well, so one doesnt easily..

Pollution regulation is different, I'm for it, if a noticeable benefit can be shown, that isnt heavily offset by economic detriments (because we all know how the weighing in that case goes), people wouldnt notice it as "paying for air to breathe", because it would be indirect enough.

If you ask them directly to pay for that... I already said idk, results could go both ways. Depends on the packaging..

On the age isnt everything part, I'm entirely with you. That argument I just threw in there for fun.. (Red herring.)

 

[FAST6191]

As far as personalised treatments and gene therapy it will probably be similar to now with outcomes, costs (a lifetime of medication not coming too cheap) and such like. What will go for the similar things to like we see for plastic surgery now I don't know. It might also depend how easily it can be done -- with some of the current viral stuff it is possibly not too far off like some of us now have house price and then a bit machine shops to play with, and the potential there is far greater than being able to do what most do with machine shops.
Equally said drugs and treatments can be rather contentious -- a good start tending to be diabetes.

Transhumanism is a favourite topic of mine, though I am not sure what you are getting at there. As far as not happening then I would differ there and expect to see it before too long.

 

[LowEndC]

A few years ago..

insert "guess i'll die" meme here.

 

[SG854]

Only if there’s a 2 for 1 sale going on

 

[notimp]

I get two air with fries on the side, please.

 

[cots]

Carbon Tax (aka Clean Air Tax) has been a thing for a time now. You're already paying for air.

 

[Xzi]

Carbon Tax (aka Clean Air Tax) has been a thing for a time now. You're already paying for air.

There's so many things wrong with this statement. Consumers don't pay carbon taxes, that's only for corporations. And they aren't paying for the air, they're paying to pollute it. Which in turn makes clean air become more of a commodity. At least the income from the tax can go toward something progressive like solar/wind energy, but only when we have elected responsible leadership.

 

[cots]

There's so many things wrong with this statement. Consumers don't pay carbon taxes, that's only for corporations. And they aren't paying for the air, they're paying to pollute it. Which in turn makes clean air become more of a commodity. At least the income from the tax can go toward something progressive like solar/wind energy, but only when we have elected responsible leadership.

Seems to me everyone pays for it. You're interpretation is lacking insight.

"A carbon tax is a way — the only way, really — to have users of carbon fuels pay for the climate damage caused by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

It's a tax that costs anyone who uses fossil fuels (that covers 99.9999999999%) of the general population money. The tax is meant to regulate bad air - to reduce it. You're paying for clean air. You're paying for air.

"Utilizing existing tax collection mechanisms, a carbon tax is paid “upstream,” i.e., at the point where fuels are extracted from the Earth and put into the stream of commerce, or imported into the U.S. Fuel suppliers and processors are free to pass along the cost of the tax to the extent that market conditions allow. Placing a tax on carbon gives consumers and producers a monetary incentive to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions."

https://www.carbontax.org/whats-a-carbon-tax

I did confuse the Carbon Tax with the Clean Air Tax. I didn't realize they were separate things, but either way you're paying for clean air. Make sure to read the linked article "Next to Nothing for Climate in Obama Plan".

https://www.carbontax.org/carbon-tax-vs-the-alternatives/clean-air-act-regulation/

 

[D34DL1N3R]

I don't know if it's been mentioned or not, but there are air pumps to fill your tires at gas stations all over the place in the US, that you have to insert coins to use. Not all of them, but they're certainly out there in enough abundance to where I notice them. So people are already literally paying for air.

 

[Xzi]

I did confuse the Carbon Tax with the Clean Air Tax. I didn't realize they were separate things, but either way you're paying for clean air.

Now you're just repeating the falsehood after your own sources state otherwise. You're paying to make clean air dirty by pumping carbon into the atmosphere. Or if you prefer, you're paying to preserve more clean air in the long-term. But unless you run a large factory, the impact on you personally is next to nothing. And you aren't going to make me cry for the world's largest polluters who disregard entirely what they're doing to the atmosphere. Corporations don't have to pass those costs along to the consumer, they choose to.

 

[cots]

Now you're just repeating the falsehood after your own sources state otherwise. You're paying to make clean air dirty by pumping carbon into the atmosphere. Or if you prefer, you're paying to preserve more clean air in the long-term. But unless you run a large factory, the impact on you personally is next to nothing. And you aren't going to make me cry for the world's largest polluters who disregard entirely what they're doing to the atmosphere. Corporations don't have to pass those costs along to the consumer, they choose to.

You are paying to keep the air clean as the tax is meant to reduce the amount of carbon in it. If there were no tax the corporations wouldn't be passing the costs onto you and them choosing to do so doesn't change the fact that you are paying for it. I stand by my original statement. You are paying for clean air. I think your THC intake today is clouding your ability to reason.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I don't know if it's been mentioned or not, but there are air pumps to fill your tires at gas stations all over the place in the US, that you have to insert coins to use. Not all of them, but they're certainly out there in enough abundance to where I notice them. So people are already literally paying for air.

ROFL. I think the OP meant "air in general". Not compressed air.

 

[Xzi]

You are paying to keep the air clean as the tax is meant to reduce the amount of carbon in it.

So then you agree with my statement.

Or if you prefer, you're paying to preserve more clean air in the long-term.

You were just wording it in a way which was easily misunderstood (IMO). We agree. No need to be a rude pissant about it.

 

[cots]

If anyone is wondering I'm all for reducing carbon emissions back to a levels that were present before we started pumping the shit into the air.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

So then you agree with my statement.

You pay for the air you breathe now through the carbon tax. Air is already taxed. The OP asked "would you pay for air" and I pointed out that you already are paying for it. That's what I posted originally.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

When I was younger, some 20 or some years ago, my father asked me "Can you name 5 things that aren't taxed". I started with with air and water ... after about 5 minutes I gave up. Can you name 5 things that aren't taxed?