[negativeview]

I don't think it's fair to say that consumers overall like either one more than the other, it depends on what we're paying FOR.

Why are consumers okay with paying a metered fee for electricity, water, and gasoline?

There's competition and/or regulations pushing those prices into reasonable ranges. Usage is fairly predictable. These are things that are horrible to have suddenly shut off without warning (like what effectively happens when you're throttled into unusability). They are things that people need in order to be a functioning member of society in the majority of places on Earth (in places with good public transit, gasoline gets removed from this list).

Aside from point #1, those also sound like the Internet.

[bsder]

> Why are consumers okay with paying a metered fee for electricity, water, and gasoline?

They're not. But normally they don't have a choice.

However, some of the utilities in the Northeast have plans wherein your bill is mostly constant year round even in spite of the spikes at certain times of the year. Lots of people like them even though they almost always wind up paying more than they would otherwise.

[kelnos]

>> Why are consumers okay with paying a metered fee for electricity, water, and gasoline?

> They're not. But normally they don't have a choice.

Wait, what? Says who? I certainly don't speak for everyone, but I'm perfectly happy paying just for my usage of these things.

I think the difference is predictability and that the costs aren't astronomical if you have a high-usage month. If it's colder than usual, I'd perhaps expect to pay another 10% on my utility bill. That's reasonable and not a hardship.

If I were to spend, say, $30/mo on a plan with 500 minutes of voice calling, and went 100 minutes over, but was only charged, say, $6 for that overage, I'd have no problem with that (because 30/500=0.06 and 0.06100=6). But instead I get charged something like $20, which is way out of proportion to the overage. That's* the objection.

And I think part of it is related to an understanding of actually "using something up". When I use more electricity, I know that I actually used something up: that extra power came from more coal being burned, or more water falling from a dam, or something of that nature. When I use more water, I know that my use of it drained a reservoir a little bit more than it otherwise would. I used up a physical good, and I'm paying for that use. If I use more than what a regulator has decided is my "fair share", I might pay a premium for that extra (many utilities have tiered pricing), but I'm ok with that because I do recognize I'm using more than usual, and the added cost of the higher tier isn't unreasonable or burdensome.

But the cost of me spending 100 extra minutes on the phone costs the carrier basically nothing. Sure, if everyone did that in a month, perhaps it would strain the carrier's network (not that it would cause the carrier to spend capital on increased capacity; they'd likely be fine with more dropped/failed calls that month). In general, though, the marginal cost to the carrier when you use more minutes than your plan provides is near zero -- and yet the carrier charges an exorbitant markup for that overage.

[bunderbunder]

It's not just about constancy, it's about having some relationship between how much you pay and how much you use. Utilities that offer that "pay the same every month" feature base the amount you pay on your average usage throughout the year.

Here's an analogy that's closer to cell phone unlimited plans: Imagine if it were instead the same flat fee for everyone across the country. I imagine you'd find the family that lives in a small apartment and keeps the house cool in the winter isn't too happy to find out that very little of their gas bill is explained by their own energy usage, and the vast majority of it is paying to heat the mansions of the rich people across town.

[lmm]

> Why are consumers okay with paying a metered fee for electricity, water, and gasoline?

I don't think they are; certainly in my country people hate metered water. And people love fixed-rate mortgages even when they'd pay less on floating. If people had the option of unmetered electricity or gasoline, I think they'd take it.

[negativeview]

It could be a regional thing, or it's possible that I am unusual myself, but I've never thought twice about metered electricity, but that's largely because I've never been hit with anything I consider unfair like I have with both mobile phones and home Internet.