[bkholdem]

I think any place that people volunteer their time, energy, and resources there is going to be an edge when compated to for profit charge for time, energy, and resources.

In the Judo class you have several 'volunteer' instructors who are giving their time, energy, and skills to the others for free. The location of the judo 'club' may very well be funded partly by donations (recources given for free).

When comparing where to be a recipient of goods and services, all other things being equal, one will get better value from the places that are giving them away for free.

There is an underlying principle at work in the judo club that is not present to nearly the same degree in the other places, social reciprocity. I would encourage you to explore the genesis of the judo club and the other 2 clubs.

In the judo club it likely started out with a volunteer component whereby the instructor was activly choosing to not get top $ for his services and the initial students likely knew this. In other words the club and/or the initial instructor(s) were extending a FAVOR to the initial students. This is a primary way that humans form social bonds. One human extends a courtesy to another human. Relationships of significant emotional value are formed this way. In turn the students continue the tradition and pass on the courtesy by helping the newer students and they are choosing to do it freely under the dynamic of social reciprocity.

(businesses try to use this powerful human force to 'trick' people into engaging in business with them because how powerful it is, there are books devoted to it and you can read up on it in the psychology field NLP. I am certain sales training techniques teach this concept and teach sales trainee's how to utilize it, albeit probably under different nomenclature).

Now how did the other places start? Likely a for profit minded person rented a space from another for profit minded person and then began to offer contractual services and found others who entered into a business-customer relationship. There may be social reciprocity undertones to some degree but the primary relationships in the latter 2 places are business relationships.

Social reciprocity creates and stustains friendships and loving relationships over the course of lifetimes. It is not a formal contractual system, people can accept the inital courtesy and turn tail and run and frequently they do (this is the way to counteract the salesman who is attempting to trick you into doing business with him when he extends a fake 'favor' or 'gift' under the guise of a genuine one, or you simply decline the gift outright. i.e. A salesman comes to your door and offers to let you try product X for a week 'for free' He is doing this not because the product is absolutely wonderful, he is doing it to create a sense of indebtedness. You either call him on it (unless he seems to be some poor schlub who was told to do this but seems to dim to understand what he is acutally doing), decline the free use which people mostly do (althought they do not consciously reason this is why they are declining, this IS why they are declining, to not get stuck in a reciprocity bind) or you accept the free stuff and refuse to allow yourself to feel any indebtedness (the discomfort feeling you have now anticipating the return of the saleman lol) and tell him matter of factly you took the stuff for free use with no intention of buying it because he tried to trick you a la the reciproctiy principle (if he seems savvy enough to realize he is using this) or simply thank him and decline the purchase and send him quickly on his way (knowing the company owner knows full well of the reciprocity principle and is using the salesman to dupe you into buying something you really dont' want and would not have otherwise purchased).

Powerful, powerful stuff.