Final answer:
Under perfect price discrimination with zero marginal costs for rides, the monopolist amusement park owner maximizes profits by charging for each ride and offering free admission, as it allows for capturing the maximum willingness to pay from each consumer.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question deals with a concept called perfect price discrimination within a monopolistic market where the monopolist sets individual prices for consumers for each unit sold such that each consumer pays exactly their maximum willingness to pay. In this scenario, all rides have zero marginal cost, and the amusement park owner is deciding between charging for each ride and offering free admission or providing free rides with paid admission. Since the monopolist is practicing perfect price discrimination and consumers have the same tastes, charging for each ride would likely maximize profits, as the owner can capture the entire area under the demand curve. The monopolist would do better charging for rides rather than charging for admission because the marginal cost of additional rides is zero, and thus the park can extract the maximum willingness to pay from each consumer for every ride they take, maximizing profits and yielding no consumer surplus.