If we live in a world where the Government does not provide free fire fighting service for everyone, how much are you willing to pay for a fire fighting subscription?
Before you continue reading, mentally give yourself a figure you find comfortable to pay for a fire fighting subscription service.
Basically, if you subscribed to it, you pay a monthly subscription fee.
When your house is on fire, firefighters will come and save you and your home.
If you are not subscribed, well you save money but if your house's on fire, tough luck.
How Much Does Our SCDF Cost?
In 2019, SCDF cost an estimated $617.6 million, protecting a population of 5.71 million.
That works out to about $9 per month each person is contributing to SCDF.
Fire protection is cheaper than my Netflix subscription, sounds like a great deal 😉.
For a family of 4 however, one will be paying about $36 every month so that firefighters will come and save them when their house is on fire 🔥🚒👩🚒👨🚒.
Looking at that figure, is it higher or lower than what you had expected or were willing to pay for?
Now that we have the figure, let's see if people are willing to pay for it.
Are You Willing To Pay For It?
We did a poll on our social media sites to see if our followers are willing to pay $9.00 per month per person for fire fighting services if it was not a public good.
A majority would still subscribe to a private fire fighting subscription service if it was not a public good - if it was $9.
Would you?
Don't try the "I won't but I'll make sure my neighbours do".
Because the firefighters would just spray the side of your house that's nearer to your neighbour and leave the rest of your house to continue burning.
Conclusion
Firefighting is an essential public good that might be best kept as a non-private entity.
Just imagine a world where firefighters arrive at your house that's on fire but did not choose to fight the fire because you did not pay the subscription 😱.
Instead, they are there to ensure the fire does not spread to your neighbour's house because your neighbour subscribed to their services.
It would be interesting to see at which point would people go "you know what, this firefighting is costing too much. I'll rather risk my house burning down than pay for a service I might never use".
So, how much would you determine as "too expensive" and hence unsubscribe to it?
Let us know in the comments.
Sources
MFA FY2017 Budget
MFA FY2018 Budget
MFA FY2019 Budget
Singapore Population Data
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