When you go to Starbucks to get 5-dollar drink and sit down to do some homework you don\u2019t think about the WiFi being slow. That is until it slows down enough for you to get frustrated. Public wifi is not a pure public good. Wifi that doesn\u2019t have a password can be consumed by anyone in the vicinity. This is a non-excludable good however it is not exactly a non-rival good. Even though you can connect to the wifi it doesn\u2019t mean the wifi is going to work fast. The wifi would be working fast if say only a few people were in the area connected to the wifi, but then say 10 people are using the wifi and someone is trying to download a large file. Then you could still consume the wifi, but it would be extremely slow. Everyone gets frustrated with the speed of his or her wifi. Nothing is ever fast enough for people now. However, when you go somewhere to use the wifi, like the library, you expect the wifi to be fast since it is public the company paying for the wifi should be paying for the fastest there is. That\u2019s what people assume anyway. Wifi will never be a pure public good because of the different speeds people receive once more people start connecting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you go to Starbucks to get 5-dollar drink and sit down to do some homework you don\u2019t think about the WiFi being slow. That is until it slows down enough for you to get frustrated. Public wifi is not … Continue reading