But if the water sources are publicly managed and water consumption is priced progressively (and sustainably) at the source, I don't see what the problem is of letting markets do the rest.
Although water pollution should be addressed as well, but this is required regardless of the scenario.
That's absolutely insane.
Don't worry poor people, you won't be able to drink water because Amazon is being lazy with pumping tap water to cool it's data centers, but it's okay because markets have deemed you irrelevant!
Also data centers don't use water for cooling. They primarily use air cooling, and last time i checked air conditioning doesn't require a constant supply of water.
Some do, some don't.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/27/thames_water_to_datac...
> Not all datacenters use water for cooling, but of those that do, a large facility might use anywhere between 1 million and 5 million gallons of water a day
Nearly all cooling towers require a constant water supply. Some water is recycled, but it is not anywhere near a closed loop system.
i.e. The more you consume, the higher you pay.
Right now many pleases have a tragedy of the commons situation. If you don't use up as much water as possible, and dig deeper wells to use it up faster than your neighbors, then you can end up with no water and out of business. If you could secure specific water rights you could plan your business. Farms _would_ go out of business with crops that are too water-intensive relative to the price, but that is actually a desirable property of the system. Those crops will raise in price until the demand lowers and the cost of higher water is sustained. Lower water-utilizing crops will replace the previous higher intensity usage.