Mass. Tollpayers: Sometimes Free Isn’t Enough

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There’s an interesting conversation over at the Boston Globe website. Even after Massachusetts dropped the maintenance fees on time-saving Fast Lane transponders, one-third of tollpayers still go to the booth to hand over payment in person. Cars with the transponders zip along past tolls, while those without wait in line gathering change. More than 150 comments on the site explain why some people refuse to enter the Fast Lane.

Wired editor Chris Anderson, in his new book, has much to say about how businesses must move toward offering services for free, but perhaps free isn’t enough in some instances. A lot of what it comes down to is that, free service or not, time-saver or not, people really don’t trust government authorities—even more than I would have guessed. How do you think these folks feel about electronic health care records, or the government getting further involved in national health care?