This is why I'll always vote against privatisation of utilities.

Weren’t those utilities public, not private?

In the US, basic utilities like power or water or gas are often handed off to a private company in a local area.

It is understood that these expensive and pervasive infrastructure projects are natural monopolies - it is much more efficient to have one provider than a competitive market. Imagine what a mess it would be if you had several sets of water pipes and power lines running through your neighborhood.

For one reason or another, local governments often let someone else manage all of that. Ostensibly, the tradeoff is that the utility company should be more heavily-regulated than a normal company would be.

But there is also some overlap between areas, and sometimes a handful of competitors are allowed to share physical infrastructure, so in practice it's more like a hodge-podge of hyperlocal oligopolies.

I don’t think you answered my question.

The problem is that infrastructure has a fixed cost, even with no usage, so in some ways it's arguable that the high fixed cost is making it so that big users aren't subsidizing everyone else.

And because people caught on that conserving doesn't really make it cost less for you, they're now instead trying to force it by issuing fines for those that don't reduce their usage.