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I’m not sure why we pay for electricity in the first place. Reliable electricity, clean water. These things are fundamental to modern human existence. Why do we

I’m not sure why we pay for electricity in the first place. Reliable electricity, clean water. These things are fundamental to modern human existence. Why do we have to pay for them at all other than greed?

cameronbrown 7y ago
Somebody has to pay for these things to be maintained?
zacherates 7y ago
You should bear the cost of whether you keep your A/C at 68° or 72°, whether you heat your house with baseboard heaters or central air, whether you insulate your house so it's easy to keep it at whatever temperature you care to, whether you live in a 4000sq detached house or a 500sq apartment, whether you run a modern refrigerator or something that fell off a truck in the 50s. Paying for your electricity helps align incentives so that you can make the trade-off of investing to lower usage vs. just buying the power you want at market rate... and bearing that cost means you have the freedom to make that trade-off rather than it being made for you.
tathougies 7y ago
Because it is morally reprehensible to have people work on the grid and maintain it without paying them due compensation for their work. That is called slavery. Without their labor, there would be no grid.
chrisBob 7y ago
I have two ways to look at this: 1) I lived in Iraq for a while, and they have free electricity. What happens there is that they have to implement rolling blackouts because when people do have electricity they turn on every appliance, light, tv, ... Having some kind of cost involved helps to limit this type of silly behavior. 2) At some point, someone is paying for electricity even if they don't send me a bill every month. Let's say the government funds free electricity for everyone. As someone who tries to conserve energy, my costs will go up while the guy next door keeps his 3k sq-ft house at 65 degrees all summer pays less than he does now. That does not seem like a good system.
logfromblammo 7y ago
Things that have no price cannot be fairly allocated by a market system, and production cannot be reliably planned. Also, paying $0.10 per kWh makes us choose between using an air conditioner to cool the interior of an occupied building to 20 degC, or wasting power on mining proof-of-work cryptocoins. There may be a case for having the first N kWh of residential household use in a month be free, and metering the excess at a higher rate. If I got unlimited electricity at no cost, I, for one, would have an aluminum smelter in my back yard--right next to the Moon-etching laser, programmed to write "CHAIRFACE".
- anoncake 7y ago
  The market system does not even try to fairly allocate anything. It allocates to those who can pay.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Let's forget about "fair" then, and focus on the allocation. Whether fair or not by someone's definition of "fair", the market system can allocate resources among uncountable federated actors, without spending a significant fraction of those resources on centralized calculations. A zero-price system cannot do that. There may exist theoretical alternate systems that can allocate more fairly than a market system. If one can do that with unmetered, no-additional-cost-to-the-consumer electricity, I'd be happy to hear about it, as I am not currently aware of any.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Sure, right now unmetered electricity would be a bad idea.
hackeraccount 7y ago
To convey information. Getting rid of price is like putting a blindfold on because you think there's a tiger nearby. I'm pretty much in the classical liberal / conservative mold and I would say that if you're worried people are suffering from the greed of others it's better to give the people who can't afford the thing in question money then to just make it free for everyone - or even make it free for the people who can't afford it.
theshadowknows 7y ago
I don’t write a cheque every month to pay for the government. Yet somehow it marches on. Do that, but with electricity.
- pwinnski 7y ago
  So electricity should be paid for by automatic deduction from my paychecks? That's how taxes work in the USA, anyway.

cameronbrown 7y ago

Somebody has to pay for these things to be maintained?

zacherates 7y ago

You should bear the cost of whether you keep your A/C at 68° or 72°, whether you heat your house with baseboard heaters or central air, whether you insulate your house so it's easy to keep it at whatever temperature you care to, whether you live in a 4000sq detached house or a 500sq apartment, whether you run a modern refrigerator or something that fell off a truck in the 50s. Paying for your electricity helps align incentives so that you can make the trade-off of investing to lower usage vs. just buying the power you want at market rate... and bearing that cost means you have the freedom to make that trade-off rather than it being made for you.

tathougies 7y ago

Because it is morally reprehensible to have people work on the grid and maintain it without paying them due compensation for their work. That is called slavery. Without their labor, there would be no grid.

chrisBob 7y ago

I have two ways to look at this: 1) I lived in Iraq for a while, and they have free electricity. What happens there is that they have to implement rolling blackouts because when people do have electricity they turn on every appliance, light, tv, ... Having some kind of cost involved helps to limit this type of silly behavior. 2) At some point, someone is paying for electricity even if they don't send me a bill every month. Let's say the government funds free electricity for everyone. As someone who tries to conserve energy, my costs will go up while the guy next door keeps his 3k sq-ft house at 65 degrees all summer pays less than he does now. That does not seem like a good system.

logfromblammo 7y ago

Things that have no price cannot be fairly allocated by a market system, and production cannot be reliably planned. Also, paying $0.10 per kWh makes us choose between using an air conditioner to cool the interior of an occupied building to 20 degC, or wasting power on mining proof-of-work cryptocoins. There may be a case for having the first N kWh of residential household use in a month be free, and metering the excess at a higher rate. If I got unlimited electricity at no cost, I, for one, would have an aluminum smelter in my back yard--right next to the Moon-etching laser, programmed to write "CHAIRFACE".

anoncake 7y ago
The market system does not even try to fairly allocate anything. It allocates to those who can pay.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  Let's forget about "fair" then, and focus on the allocation. Whether fair or not by someone's definition of "fair", the market system can allocate resources among uncountable federated actors, without spending a significant fraction of those resources on centralized calculations. A zero-price system cannot do that. There may exist theoretical alternate systems that can allocate more fairly than a market system. If one can do that with unmetered, no-additional-cost-to-the-consumer electricity, I'd be happy to hear about it, as I am not currently aware of any.
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Sure, right now unmetered electricity would be a bad idea.

hackeraccount 7y ago

To convey information. Getting rid of price is like putting a blindfold on because you think there's a tiger nearby. I'm pretty much in the classical liberal / conservative mold and I would say that if you're worried people are suffering from the greed of others it's better to give the people who can't afford the thing in question money then to just make it free for everyone - or even make it free for the people who can't afford it.

theshadowknows 7y ago

I don’t write a cheque every month to pay for the government. Yet somehow it marches on. Do that, but with electricity.

pwinnski 7y ago
So electricity should be paid for by automatic deduction from my paychecks? That's how taxes work in the USA, anyway.