[foobarian]

> They tend to pay industrial rates like any other industrial consumer would

Well yeah, you don't need to look further than Econ 101 and supply and demand. If demand goes up, prices go up.

The real problem is that the gains from the new demand don't end up fairly distributed, which is bad but not really directly related to the discussion.

[phil21]

And then supply goes up. In theory.

Americans have coasted too long on other people's infrastructure investment. It's basically run out. Time to pay the piper or watch our quality of life decline.

I firmly believe datacenters are simply the scapegoat de-jour. If this buildout hadn't happened it'd still be EVs or "air conditioning use in the city" like it was beforehand.

It's coming for us either way. At least this way there is an industrial user subsidizing a portion of grid modernization and energy generation tech.

I agree that wealth distribution is a problem. But I come from a "there needs to be wealth to distribute to begin with" standpoint. Degrowth isn't the way.

[bigbadfeline]

> And then supply goes up. In theory.

Supply goes up for a price and it's called capex, that cost wouldn't be there without new datacenters.

> Americans have coasted too long on other people's infrastructure investment. It's basically run out.

That's such an egregious inversion of the truth. It would be true if the companies building data-centers were building power plants and transmission lines which the population was allowed to use for the cost of operating expanses - after all capex and loans were payed off by these companies.

The reality is the exact opposite of that - the public is shouldering all of the capex and the new AI overloads want to pay for the opex only.

> Time to pay the piper or watch our quality of life decline.

They are even ready to issue threatening ultimatums if you disagree... as if agreeing would lead to a different outcome.