3 ms·

Here's something I've been wondering: an "infrastructure platform" sounds cool in theory at least in part because it's so vague; anyone can kinda take what they

Here's something I've been wondering: an "infrastructure platform" sounds cool in theory at least in part because it's so vague; anyone can kinda take what they want from it, like the phrase "America is in crisis". Especially right now, I'm sure an infrastructure platform in the abstract would poll well. But in terms of concrete economic choices, the popularity of services like Griddly seems to indicate that many quite explicitly choose low (instantaneous) cost over reliability/price stability. It's like airline tickets: everyone loves griping about seatroom or whatever but revealed preference is for low-cost offerings. Put differently, as a non-Texan looking in, I guess I'm asking how hopeful you are that this zeitgeist can be capitalized on once you get down to actual policy and the inherent trade-offs you've got to deal with therein (and also when participants are warm and comfortable). To be clear I personally would vote for you in a heartbeat, but the cliffs in support between vague positive overarching statements and concrete policy proposals in other areas don't leave me super hopeful.

WJW 6y ago
Nobody is ever against it, until they realize that money spent on infrastructure is money not spent on something else. Do you use the infrastructure money on less police, less education or less healthcare? This is an intentionally provocative statement of course, but somehow you will need to make choices on how to fund it and there are (extremely solidly) entrenched players all over the field. Even worse, most of the entrenched players actually have good points.
asciimov 6y ago
> Do I have hope that this disaster will spur changes in policy? If the past as shown us anything, it is nothing will change unless we can improve things for everybody. We've gotta make sure everybody gets something of value. Changes have to be made at a local level to improve peoples lives and those improvements need to be advertised in a way that the people know what policies helped them out. Or what policies are hurting them. Most people here just want lower taxes and more money in their pockets. Yet, they don't realize that while they pay for their share of the state bills plenty of other people/companies aren't.
redbeard0x0a 6y ago
Just want to say that I am a griddy customer, I don't do it for the absolute lowest cost, but the ability to see and respond to pricing via home automation. A way to hack my electric bill. This week has definitely sucked in terms of cost. Griddy is also introducing contract rates next month, so some amount of power can be purchased at a predicted rate and you get that power at that rate, not the spot price until you run out of that contracted amount of power. (I only know the vague details of the program, just fyi). Also, this is a regulation failure because the PUCT (or whatever it is called), which is under the purview of the Railroad Commissioner (an elected position), didn't make recommended winterization guidelines mandatory. Without this, the market favors the biggest corner cutting.

WJW 6y ago

Nobody is ever against it, until they realize that money spent on infrastructure is money not spent on something else. Do you use the infrastructure money on less police, less education or less healthcare? This is an intentionally provocative statement of course, but somehow you will need to make choices on how to fund it and there are (extremely solidly) entrenched players all over the field. Even worse, most of the entrenched players actually have good points.

asciimov 6y ago

> Do I have hope that this disaster will spur changes in policy? If the past as shown us anything, it is nothing will change unless we can improve things for everybody. We've gotta make sure everybody gets something of value. Changes have to be made at a local level to improve peoples lives and those improvements need to be advertised in a way that the people know what policies helped them out. Or what policies are hurting them. Most people here just want lower taxes and more money in their pockets. Yet, they don't realize that while they pay for their share of the state bills plenty of other people/companies aren't.

redbeard0x0a 6y ago

Just want to say that I am a griddy customer, I don't do it for the absolute lowest cost, but the ability to see and respond to pricing via home automation. A way to hack my electric bill. This week has definitely sucked in terms of cost. Griddy is also introducing contract rates next month, so some amount of power can be purchased at a predicted rate and you get that power at that rate, not the spot price until you run out of that contracted amount of power. (I only know the vague details of the program, just fyi). Also, this is a regulation failure because the PUCT (or whatever it is called), which is under the purview of the Railroad Commissioner (an elected position), didn't make recommended winterization guidelines mandatory. Without this, the market favors the biggest corner cutting.