<story><title>Hotelling’s Law (2011)</title><url>https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2692.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>noonespecial</author><text>This always seemed to fall down for me in that some people who were willing to walk 1&amp;#x2F;4 mile for ice cream won&amp;#x27;t be willing to walk 1&amp;#x2F;2 mile. You have to make huge assumptions to call this any sort of &amp;quot;law&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alangpierce</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d say it&amp;#x27;s a significant result because it&amp;#x27;s a situation where natural competition causes a negative outcome for everyone. Having to walk 1&amp;#x2F;2 mile for ice cream is certainly at least as bad of an experience as having to walk 1&amp;#x2F;4 mile, probably strictly worse for most people. It seems likely that both vendors will lose some customers compared with the original scenario, and that the average customer experience will be worse.&lt;p&gt;If the same person ran both carts, or if they were run by the government, then they would be spaced far apart (the original position), which would be better for everyone.</text></comment>
<story><title>Hotelling’s Law (2011)</title><url>https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2692.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>noonespecial</author><text>This always seemed to fall down for me in that some people who were willing to walk 1&amp;#x2F;4 mile for ice cream won&amp;#x27;t be willing to walk 1&amp;#x2F;2 mile. You have to make huge assumptions to call this any sort of &amp;quot;law&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>setr</author><text>I would imagine in the fridge example that results in a product category. In the ice cream example, the carts would move as far possible towards the middle until the incentive is no longer an incentive. They&amp;#x27;re already in the middle, or going any closer would lose rather than gain customers. But afaict the general idea still holds, theres an inherent incentive to move to the middle (which ofc can be defeated by competing incentives but nonetheless)</text></comment>