People value what they pay for. On the other hand, in most cases, access to services or commodities that come free are generally not viewed as having the same quality as similar services or commodities that are paid for.

Take for example the case of services like healthcare that are provided free are generally availed of with a pinch of suspicion. If we can afford it we would rather pay a hefty fee and accept probably less than adequate medical services from a private facility notwithstanding studies that run counter to this belief.

This, however, is not to say that government healthcare services are always excellent or private healthcare services are always poor compared to free public medical facilities. The point here is that we have a choice when it comes to things that we pay for. But things that come free provides an option in binary. Take it or leave it.

Same is the case with schools. We tend to reject the quality of public instruction system outright as having a lower quality despite there being government schools with excellent faculty. According to the Hindustan Times, between 2010-11 and 2015-16, student enrolment in government schools across 20 Indian states fell by 13 million, while private schools acquired 17.5 million new students. This again is the result of a mind-set that the teachers in government schools will not be up to the mark and the schools are most likely to lack proper infrastructure. Although studies have shown that public institutions also have some of the best teachers as members of faculty.

The point that needs to be noted here is that nothing comes free. Public health care services are subsidised. The government pays for it from the taxes that we pay. Public instruction systems that are subsidised are again paid for from our taxes. What happens in the cases of free services and commodities is that the cost burden gets shifted from the shoulders of the beneficiary to somebody else. The issue here is that of managing the quality and restoring the faith of the people in the system.

Thus said we must bear in mind that even the common perception that air and water are free is also a misconception. For ages we thought it to be so. Now gradually due to misutilisation for generations, we are now paying the price for it. Gradually, potable water is getting scarce and we are being forced to pay a price for it. So the cost of misutilisation, because it was deemed to be available in abundance has been shifted across generations on us and we are paying for it.

Even in economic terms services like defence and law and order enforcing agencies don’t come free. The price of their maintenance is paid for out of the taxes that we pay.

The same principle operates in the commercial products and services. Certain market strategies dictate that to grab a slice of the market or to raise sales volume freebies need to be offered. But here again the extent of acceptance is a function of the acceptance of the value of the brand. However, we must bear in mind that the cost of the freebies that is informed by a marketing strategy is subsumed in the price one way or the other.

Net net, in our world, the adage that there is no free lunch holds across the board irrespective of our rejection or acceptance of a product or service. Somebody always has to pay for it.