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by gamacodre
1718 days ago
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I was responding to a comment about making money from ads, but a similar line of thought works for banking services, I think. Suppose that your use of the water service was creating public lashback against the water utility for "supporting" your business. A loud minority is pestering the water board members and complaining that what you're doing ought to be illegal even if it isn't strictly yet. Some are pressuring other big water users to reexamine their contracts with the utility, and someone even managed to talk a pump supplier into severing their relationship with the utility. A different minority is yelling stuff about "rights" and making trouble at board meetings. The easiest possible thing to do in this situation is to find some vaguely plausible reason to cut your access to the public utility, and tell you that you have to truck your water in yourself from now on. Note that this kind of stuff actually happens to farmers, refineries, and other businesses. As far as what's "right"... Damn if I know. None of this is happening in a vacuum, and these decisions end up being made by people who are accountable to and influenced by their family, friends, and community for the choices that they make. Clear laws can dilute that responsibility, but only to a point. |
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It depends on what level the ads are being cut. But sure, that can be different.
> As far as what's "right"... Damn if I know.
I stand pretty firmly on "everyone deserves access to utilities".
Maybe with a throttle at a certain level if they're abusing the utility itself.
So charging more to big water users is usually fine, refusing to deal at all is rarely fine.
The point at which someone is acting so badly they need to be removed from utilities, where fines aren't even enough, is the point where they should be going to prison. And then they should have access restored upon release.
And sending money in a simple electronic way should be a utility in the US.