[Fronzie]

In the Netherlands the same happened with the railway and healthcare coverage. The motivation was that market pressure would lead to increased efficiency. In practice, there's a tendency towards monopoly and a forest of product variants leading to more confusion and people buying sub-optimal. The net effect over here is negative, in my opinion.

[mytailorisrich]

The thing is there is no market pressure for water/sewage, which is a monopoly and even a natural monopoly.

There are very good argument to have a working market wherever possible but obviously that does not work with natural monopolies. In those cases it makes more sense to make it a state-owned company and to drive investment while keeping costs down for the benefits of all. Nothing new as this has been a recognised issue since the 19th century.