There are distinctive differences between private market and public government operations. Private goods and public goods have different characteristics. A good is considered to be a public good if it
it is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. A good is non-excludable when it can be consumed by anyone, i.e. no one can be prohibited from consuming it. It is non-rivalrous when the consumption from one individual doesn't limit the consumption from other people. Even if there is a limit in the consumption of a private good or service, it is still considered a public good because the limit is not imposed by anyone, it is imposed by the nature of the good or service, e.g. only X amount of people can use a public beach because the size of the beach limits the number of users, since there is no beach that can be used by 7 billion people.
