Tragedy of the commons thing, though, right?

New developments incur impact fees to offset their immediate effects on the roads, sewers, and sidewalks. Police charge a fee to connect your alarm system to their dispatchers, an hourly wage for an off-duty cop to stand guard at your commercial premise, and a fine if you waste their time with false alarms. Fire services tend to send you a bill for a false alarm, a fee for an inspection and, if you did it on purpose, a criminal charge plus the full cost of the response. And lord forbid you accept EMS services…

All are tax-funded, but all gesture at apportioning costs proportionally to use. If they send this much junk mail while it’s quarters-a-pop, how much would they send if it were free…