Re:California Mayors Join Campaign to Buy Out PG&E
by subsaharancoder on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @06:31PM
(#21458034)
PG&E has close to 16 million customers and over 70K square miles, I doubt there's any municipal utility that operates at that scale but I could be wrong.
Re:California Mayors Join Campaign to Buy Out PG&E
by kevingadd on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @06:32PM
(#21458048)
Could address this by splitting PG&E up into a bunch of smaller scale utilities that are responsive to the needs of their customers, and model them on other successful small-scale utilities.
Re:California Mayors Join Campaign to Buy Out PG&E
by subsaharancoder on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @06:41PM
(#21458128)
This could work, would be great to see some case studies of successful municipal run utilities, I'm very open to learn and be corrected.
They're faster for service, cheaper on rates, don't shut my power off when it's windy, their website is better.
The DMV is always the go-to when people fear government providing a service. Why? Yeah, wait times can be up to a couple hours. But the service I get when I'm called has always been fine. And the only reason I have to appear in person is when I've been lazy about paying registration or getting my smog check.
For 90% of what I want to do, I just use their website on my own time and with no hassle. Or AAA. Or make an appointment at the DMV and wait about 30 minutes.
Complaining about the DMV is like complaining about airline food. Neither of those are really that bad, and I suspect if the money was spent to make them first-class experiences, we'd all just start complaining about the cost instead.
Private sector companies only perform better than the government when they're in a competitive space. As far as I'm concerned, a private monopoly is usually worse than the equivalent government-provided service. (see: Comcast vs. municipal broadband)