Originally Posted by
Gertrude the Wombat
In that case the cost to the phone owner is the £30 fee they haven't taken.
You probably mean opportunity cost. i.e., the imaginary loss of revenue. The real cost would have been the cost charged by the landline phone company, not the 30 GPB.
Alternatively, set unreasonably high prices, with no granularity between zero calls and infinite number of calls, and 99% of the revenue stream opportunity bites the dust in the very same way! So not only generousity but greed also kills revenue streams. The chap offered to cover the cost of the call, but it was not accepted. So they waited until someone brought a mobile phone and made their call over that. So in economical terms, the opportunity cost to the owner wasn't his imaginary 30 GPB, but the much lower cost of 1 mobile call. Economically speaking, both the pilots and the owner lost the opportunity to make a deal and help each other (and the mobile phone company won
) This is why it makes sense to be moderately nice and flexible in business - not too generous, not too greedy....