[PeterStuer]

Actually having a vital utility in private hands is a guaranteed recipe for getting service that is optimize for making the most profit rather than providing the best value.

You might be lucky in the honeymoon period where the company is still getting entrenched, but once that is over and getting them out again is not that easy, you will gravitate to minimal service, especially in areas that require investment, and being bled dry and fleeced for wathever they can.

Large risks that would require preventive maintainable or modernization to mitigate will be ignored as the company knows they will be bailed out should it come to that.

And all this because of the neoliberale dogma that the private sector is somehow always 'better' than the public sector.

In reality large. organization of equal size have the same efficiency problems, regardless of them being public or private sector. And before you point to a leaner small private champion in a competitive field you should systemically add the cost of the dozens or even hundreds of competitors they are 'beating'.

The advantage you have when things are not in the hands of the private sector is that you can prioritise ongoing quality and value of service provisioning over maximisation of short term profit extraction.