4 ms·

I cannot believe you're blaming someone for not reading the million pages of fine print and not completely understanding the ramifications of a situation where

by 93po 6y ago

I cannot believe you're blaming someone for not reading the million pages of fine print and not completely understanding the ramifications of a situation where your power is shut off for days with freezing temperatures, no water, no heat, sometimes no gas, and risking thousands of dollars of damage to your home with freezing pipes. Please have compassion. I need to take a break from this site, these comments make me sick sometimes

qeternity 6y ago
It’s literally the point of Griddy. It’s not the fine print. It’s the whole damn product. She was happy to take lower rates 99.9% of the time. She can’t cry foul the 0.1% of the time when the trade goes against her.
- hellomyguys 6y ago
  >She can’t cry foul the 0.1% of the time when the trade goes against her. If you're a person completely devoid of empathy, yes that is a fine perspective. We all know what happened here is that Texas politicians deregulated the power system in a way that allowed for people to be taken advantage of. Your ire shouldn't go towards this woman who is probably doing this as a last resort, but to the politicians who sold out a public utility and any investment in the electric grid for the public good so a few people could profit.
  - qeternity 6y ago
    Griddy has 29k customers. There are millions of other Texans paying higher fixed rates who did not get screwed here. This is not about deregulation. This is about someone taking a risk that didn’t work out, and trying to get a court to fix it for her.
    - gizmo686 6y ago
      The deregulation is allowing the retail consumers direct access to the wholesale market. The product that Griddy was selling is not something that should be legal to sell to normal consumers.
      - chomp 6y ago
        Why not? I’m a happy Griddy customer. They provide an API and I have my stuff set to progressively shut down once the price gets over 50 cents/kWh. I’ve saved about $5000 total just being smart about my usage. In short, I like the product, I’m more eco minded as it reduces my usage in times of demand, and it rewards my good behavior.
- spankalee 6y ago
  Look at their home page. The emphasis is on paying wholesale meaning no markup. The word "risk" does not appear on the front page. There's a hidden tab where they downplay the risk of spikes by saying $1 happens less than < 0.1% of the time and there's no bucket near the $9 that it cost last week.
- syshum 6y ago
  Well we did just have a congressional hearing where it was suggested that people should be able to get refunds on their stock purchases for 30 or 60 days so..... It seems people have seen the "Socialize the losses" that the government has been doing in many industries and instead of recognizing it as corruptions and advocating its elimination they say "I gotta get me some of that" Of course that is a game of musical chairs and when the music stops the dollar will be worth less than toilet paper but.....
gruez 6y ago
>I cannot believe you're blaming someone for not reading the million pages of fine print and not completely understanding the ramifications of a situation where your power is shut off for days with freezing temperatures, no water, no heat, sometimes no gas, and risking thousands of dollars of damage to your home with freezing pipes. how is it any different than being overleveraged in the stock market, and when the crash comes you end up losing your life savings and your job?
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  I don’t have to participate in the stock market to stop my children from freezing to death
  - gruez 6y ago
    You don't have to participate in the energy market either. She willingly chose to. To modify my original analogy a bit, it's like someone who was overleveraged in commodity futures (think corn, hog, and oil futures, all essential to survival), and got wiped out in a recession.
    - chickenpotpie 6y ago
      She’s not buying commodities or stocks or bonds. She was purchasing electricity to not freeze to death and the electric company said “sorry about the emergency we caused by not winter proofing, that’ll be $10,000.
      - gruez 6y ago
        Being enrolled with a regular electricity provider essentially provides you with an financial instrument in the form of electricity futures. That is, a contract that allows you to buy electricity at a fixed rate, regardless of what the market rate is. Signing up with griddy is essentially the same as selling electricity futures, which exposes you to price fluctuations. In that manner there's nothing different between signing up for griddy, electricty prices rising, and getting wiped out; and selling oil futures, oil prices rising, and getting wiped out.
dont__panic 6y ago
Someone comes to you with an offer to buy avocados for far below standard rates, something like 2 cents per avocados on average. It comes with a catch, though: the rates differ from day to day depending on demand. This someone tells you that this is possible through the magic of wholesale pricing. So some days the avocados are 1 cent and other days the avocados spike up to 5 cents. One day you check, and due to an avocado shortage the avocados cost $500 each. Except you just made an order for a giant bowl of guacamole you were going to share with your friends while you watch the super bowl. Can you sue the avocado provider for these rates? To me, it doesn't seem like it's out of the realm of reasonable given the money you've saved in the past through this provider.

by 93po 6y ago

qeternity 6y ago

It’s literally the point of Griddy. It’s not the fine print. It’s the whole damn product. She was happy to take lower rates 99.9% of the time. She can’t cry foul the 0.1% of the time when the trade goes against her.

hellomyguys 6y ago
>She can’t cry foul the 0.1% of the time when the trade goes against her. If you're a person completely devoid of empathy, yes that is a fine perspective. We all know what happened here is that Texas politicians deregulated the power system in a way that allowed for people to be taken advantage of. Your ire shouldn't go towards this woman who is probably doing this as a last resort, but to the politicians who sold out a public utility and any investment in the electric grid for the public good so a few people could profit.
- qeternity 6y ago
  Griddy has 29k customers. There are millions of other Texans paying higher fixed rates who did not get screwed here. This is not about deregulation. This is about someone taking a risk that didn’t work out, and trying to get a court to fix it for her.
  - gizmo686 6y ago
    The deregulation is allowing the retail consumers direct access to the wholesale market. The product that Griddy was selling is not something that should be legal to sell to normal consumers.
    - chomp 6y ago
      Why not? I’m a happy Griddy customer. They provide an API and I have my stuff set to progressively shut down once the price gets over 50 cents/kWh. I’ve saved about $5000 total just being smart about my usage. In short, I like the product, I’m more eco minded as it reduces my usage in times of demand, and it rewards my good behavior.
spankalee 6y ago
Look at their home page. The emphasis is on paying wholesale meaning no markup. The word "risk" does not appear on the front page. There's a hidden tab where they downplay the risk of spikes by saying $1 happens less than < 0.1% of the time and there's no bucket near the $9 that it cost last week.
syshum 6y ago
Well we did just have a congressional hearing where it was suggested that people should be able to get refunds on their stock purchases for 30 or 60 days so..... It seems people have seen the "Socialize the losses" that the government has been doing in many industries and instead of recognizing it as corruptions and advocating its elimination they say "I gotta get me some of that" Of course that is a game of musical chairs and when the music stops the dollar will be worth less than toilet paper but.....

gruez 6y ago

>I cannot believe you're blaming someone for not reading the million pages of fine print and not completely understanding the ramifications of a situation where your power is shut off for days with freezing temperatures, no water, no heat, sometimes no gas, and risking thousands of dollars of damage to your home with freezing pipes. how is it any different than being overleveraged in the stock market, and when the crash comes you end up losing your life savings and your job?

chickenpotpie 6y ago
I don’t have to participate in the stock market to stop my children from freezing to death
- gruez 6y ago
  You don't have to participate in the energy market either. She willingly chose to. To modify my original analogy a bit, it's like someone who was overleveraged in commodity futures (think corn, hog, and oil futures, all essential to survival), and got wiped out in a recession.
  - chickenpotpie 6y ago
    She’s not buying commodities or stocks or bonds. She was purchasing electricity to not freeze to death and the electric company said “sorry about the emergency we caused by not winter proofing, that’ll be $10,000.
    - gruez 6y ago
      Being enrolled with a regular electricity provider essentially provides you with an financial instrument in the form of electricity futures. That is, a contract that allows you to buy electricity at a fixed rate, regardless of what the market rate is. Signing up with griddy is essentially the same as selling electricity futures, which exposes you to price fluctuations. In that manner there's nothing different between signing up for griddy, electricty prices rising, and getting wiped out; and selling oil futures, oil prices rising, and getting wiped out.

dont__panic 6y ago

Someone comes to you with an offer to buy avocados for far below standard rates, something like 2 cents per avocados on average. It comes with a catch, though: the rates differ from day to day depending on demand. This someone tells you that this is possible through the magic of wholesale pricing. So some days the avocados are 1 cent and other days the avocados spike up to 5 cents. One day you check, and due to an avocado shortage the avocados cost $500 each. Except you just made an order for a giant bowl of guacamole you were going to share with your friends while you watch the super bowl. Can you sue the avocado provider for these rates? To me, it doesn't seem like it's out of the realm of reasonable given the money you've saved in the past through this provider.