No they're not; people in the U.S. buy a heck of a lot of bottled water, despite the fact that potable water is available basically anywhere for free.
And try this: shoplift a bottle of water from a 7-11 and when the cops come, tell them that water is free anyway, and the 7-11 has a big multiple markup, so it's not really a crime. See how that goes.
That may be the case today, but companies selling bottled water have huge marketing budgets and exploit people's lack of trust in public institutions.
> And try this: shoplift a bottle of water from a 7-11 and when the cops come, tell them that water is free anyway, and the 7-11 has a big multiple markup, so it's not really a crime. See how that goes.
I wouldn't shoplift a bottle just as I wouldn't shoplift a music CD. I wouldn't even go to the shop in the first place, as I can get both drinking water and the songs I want from near-free sources, and with better quality.
But there sort of is. Everywhere else when a company is caught selling something for big multiples of the marginal costs, people are outraged. Think of e.g. costs of SMS in the past (which were essentially free for the providers), or how people react to ticket scalping. Even drugs, where the initial costs are high, don't get a free pass here. In most areas of the market, you have competition that ensures margins are reasonable, and outside those areas, people selling way over what they need to recoup the costs are generally considered assholes.
> The reason sneaking into a sports stadium is wrong is not because it deprives the stadium owner of the $0.01 marginal cost of an additional person being present. It's because it deprives them of the opportunity to sell a ticket for $100.
On the other hand, if a stadium was already making money hand over fist on the game, recouping their costs with a wide margin, being too bitter about a couple of people sneaking in would be considered soulless, whereas turning a blind eye would be considered noble. This is a more complex and context-dependent topic; things do not boil down to "opportunity to sell". Hell, in this particular case I'd expect most people's intuitions would be related to general property rights (not paying $100 is trespassing).