Is free riding always bad?

well, is it?

Define free riding. Is it like free loading?

I'd define a free rider as someone who benefits from resources, goods or services without paying for the cost of the benefit.
I'd argue that we all free ride and often there is nothing wrong with it. For example, if I re-paint my house, the neighbors benefit from having an improved structure in a neighborhood. I would argue that it would be completely unreasonable to bill them at all for my work. You simply can't impose benefits on people and then send them a bill.

Are you going to be the horse pulling the cart or the guy in the cart? You can choose. I'd rather be the guy in the cart. Why get be taken advantage?

Originally posted by Eladar
Are you going to be the horse pulling the cart or the guy in the cart? You can choose. I'd rather be the guy in the cart. Why get be taken advantage?

No, you can't choose. The guy in the cart is rich. The horse is poor.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
No, you can't choose. The guy in the cart is rich. The horse is poor.

If you are poor, you can choose to work the system. Sign up for all for all the free stuff you can get, then work under the table.

It's the poor shmucks who try to make an honest living and be self sufficient that gets taken advantage in this country.

Originally posted by Eladar
If you are poor, you can choose to work the system. Sign up for all for all the free stuff you can get, then work under the table.

It's the poor shmucks who try to make an honest living and be self sufficient that gets taken advantage in this country.

In your analogy, such poor people are cockroaches hiding under the seat.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
In your analogy, such poor people are cockroaches hiding under the seat.

Which ones? The ones working their butts off at two or three jobs or the ones collecting the government's money, then getting paid under the table?

Originally posted by Eladar
Which ones? The ones working their butts off at two or three jobs or the ones collecting the government's money, then getting paid under the table?

The latter. The horse is the one with the two or three jobs.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
The latter. The horse is the one with the two or three jobs.

This country has a bunch of roaches.

There are probably some hiding here:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/exography-many-disability-recipients-admit-they-could-work/article/2533626

Yeah, there are some elderly and maimed horses that could work, but we don't have jobs for them. They can't pay the rent, so they get a free ride...to the glue factory.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Yeah, there are some elderly and maimed horses that could work, but we don't have jobs for them. They can't pay the rent, so they get a free ride...to the glue factory.

Lol, you think all those are retired people in the survey?

You may complain about the roaches, but you aren't willing to see them when they are pointed out.

Originally posted by Eladar
Lol, you think all those are retired people in the survey?

You may complain about the roaches, but you aren't willing to see them when they are pointed out.

I am not complaining about the roaches. They aren't making the horse's life any harder.

Originally posted by Eladar
Lol, you think all those are retired people in the survey?

You may complain about the roaches, but you aren't willing to see them when they are pointed out.

Many of those people are paranoid schizophrenics who are on medications...which is not a stable situation. They have a very hard time holding jobs. The medications are unpleasant and insanity is seductive.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
Define free riding. Is it like free loading?

yes i suspect it is and it seems that there is a kind of moral sensitivity that people have towards free riding, that its socially unacceptable, yet it seems to me that there are inherent benefits, for example the distribution of source code for Open source programs where people are actively rewarded and encouraged to free ride, the benefit being that the source code is available to a much broader spectrum of people and that it shall be refined and reach excellence as a direct consequence. The latest distributions of Linux blows Windows away.

Another example might be in the use of drug patents where in the case of HIV, the initial cost of treatment per person was out with the reach of most sufferers, yet free riding and copying the patent and distributing the drug at a much lower cost benefited millions of persons.

another example might be downloading and distributing MP3's where the record company might argue that it has invested a lot of money in artists and especially in production costs, yet the free sharing of MP3's might in the long term make people buy legitimate copies of albums, thus benefiting the artist and record companies.