The usefulness of an instrument is linked to the function it can fulfill: a corkscrew is useful for opening a bottle.
From the Latin utilĭtas , utility is the interest , benefit or fruit that is obtained from something. The term also allows us to name the useful quality ( that can serve or be used in some sense ).
Something useful serves to satisfy a need . For example: if a person wants to open a bottle, the corkscrew is a useful instrument to achieve his goal. A subject who intends to paint a wall will have the paint and the brush as useful elements for his task.
Total profit vs. marginal utility
It is possible to distinguish between total utility (the utility provided by the consumed quantity of a good) and marginal utility (the increase in total utility produced by the last consumed unit of said good). Marginal utility is decreasing: as consumption of a good increases, the satisfaction produced by each new unit is less than that produced by the previous good.
This can be clearly seen in the case of food. A hungry individual will feel great satisfaction when eating a first slice of pizza. The second portion will generate less satisfaction, and so on until reaching the moment when the subject will be satisfied and the good (the pizza) will no longer be useful.
In the field of business, utility is profit or profit.
The concept in computing and law
In the field of computing, the term utility has also been used. In this case, it refers to any type of tool that is used with the sole and clear objective of serving not only to carry out the construction of a specific program but also for its subsequent execution.
No less important is the word that we are analyzing in the field of law. In that case, it is common to talk about what is called a Catalog of Public Use Forests. As its name indicates, it is a list of all those mountains that are considered to be of “public service.”
For a territory of this type to be classified as such, it is necessary that it contribute significantly to regulating what would be a hydrographic basin, that it palpably reduces rockfall, that it be declared a protective mountain or that it is essential for the conservation of the soil, among other characteristics.
Utility as profit
In the field of economics and finance , utility is associated with the profit obtained from a good or an investment. A person who invests 500 pesos to purchase wholesale products and, after reselling them in the retail market, obtains 650 pesos, has achieved a profit of 150 pesos.
That is, in that case we could determine that the term utility comes to serve as a synonym for benefit. Since it would be the difference that exists between the expenses that a given business has and the income it has obtained.
Finally, we would have to emphasize that in the field of philosophy the word utility also takes special prominence. Specifically, the word utilitarianism does so, which is used to define an ethical doctrine whose main maxim is that the usefulness of an action for beings will determine its morality.