This is a key misunderstanding: the systems are performing as designed but the normal maintenance was skimped on for years and now we're seeing the consequences of years of fiscal “conservatism” punting the problem down the road for future generations to deal with.
If we were to use that logic to say we should stop doing things, we'd also be shutting down most roads, bridges, water systems, schools, etc. because those have the same problems due to the large number of people who don't want to pay for the things they use. Every year, https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org will have a low rating for most U.S. infrastructure and every year a key part of the political system will shrug, say “starve the beast”, and plan on being dead / elsewhere before things break down too much more.
Privatization often makes this problem worse because all of those costs remain unmodified and there's a need to generate profits which requires either increasing prices or reducing service. That can be acceptable for many businesses but cutting infrastructure tends to have significant economic ripple effects since it affects your ability to participate in the economy.
My current city, Miami, the city is looking at reducing mass transit service [0]. After already approving a 1-cent tax to expand service MDTA reneged and used the increase to pay for existing issues (fair enough, it needed fixing). Now, we're all paying slight more for a still terrible system.
At this point I think the solution just may have to come from the open market, obviously the govt run entity is unable/unwilling to do the job.
[0] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/a...