The Worst Things in Life Are Really Cheap

The mysterious, vowelless Knzn takes on the opposite of the water-diamonds paradox:

Economics and...: This analysis raises the broader question of why good things generally seem to cost more than not-so-good things. I have several answers. First, to a large extent, the premise isn't even true. Most people, most of the time, would rather watch TV than eat tofu, and yet broadcast TV is essentially free (except for the amortized cost of the TV set) whereas tofu has a nontrivial cost. Second, many good things -- for example, the best Belgian chocolate -- are in fact supplied monopolistically.

But the main reason, I think, is this: it's not so much that good things are expensive as that expensive things are good. Gilbert in fact makes this point in his next sentence, but my reasoning is different than his. A basic premise of economics is the idea of diminishing marginal utility: the more you already have of something, the less additional happiness you get from an incremental amount. Things that don't cost much, we already have plenty of, so an additional unit is not that good. Things that cost a lot, we don't have much of, so an additional unit is very good. So, for example, why is going to a professional theatrical production better than going to a movie? Of course there are many who will say that the theatre is an inherently better art form, but for most people, I think, the answer is this: going to a play is better because we don't get to do it as often. In other words, theatre is better than cinema specifically because theatre is more expensive.

To put it another way, if it were expensive and weren't good, who would bother making any of it? We should expect to find things that are expensive and good, things that are cheap and not-very-good, things that are cheap and good, but not things that are expensive and not-good.