Question:
I've lived in towns, and worked at job sites, where the water tasted terrible, due to mineral content. Probably safe to drink, but tasted like crap. Pure distilled water doesn't taste great either. ( of some chemical? Low 'free' O2 content? Jump in here, fellow from the water treatment company.)

Answer: In situations like that, I could probably rationalize away buying bottle or jug water for drinking water purposes, the same as when they have an oopsie with the treatment plant, or a flood or something, and tell everyone not to drink the tap water. As for me, I only buy bottle water when traveling, to have something chilled to sip on the highway. (I never remember to pack a cooler, and pretty much all the soda pop they sell in the stations tastes like crap to me.)

My well water here is tolerable tasting, but not great. Had to put in a softener due to iron content. Fridge has a door dispenser with a filter, but the line is tea-kettled up, and a bottle takes forever to fill. If I dump the ice bin in the sink, after it melts, it leaves a white ring. Best tasting water I've ever had was from wells, but you have to hit the right water layer- I've seen subdivisions where everyone had deep wells that tasted like crap, but there was a layer of sweet water at less than 20 feet.