alt Hacker NewsPrivatization of utilities was always bad idea. We had a lot of it in Poland, mostly driven by "govt owning it is communism, we want to get away from what" and it just made it near universally worse
Replies
Right, I'd rather lose 15% of cost to waste/inefficiency than increase cost by 25% to put money in someone's pocket.
Privatization supporters seem to always use waste as a boogeyman, but never the inevitable profitmaxxing for management and shareholders.
Utilities have made $200B+ in profit since 2021, new report says - https://www.utilitydive.com/news/utilities-have-made-200b-in... - March 17th, 2026
That's $200B that could've, in some parts, gone into grid investment and lower electrical costs. Instead, it's the rake for financially engineering being a middleman.
I'm confident this is solved for in the long term with more coop and muni ownership of grids, alongside rapid deployment of solar and batteries so folks can go off grid if they want, as is happening across Pakistan [1] [2]; in the interim, it's annoying though, and for those who cannot afford to be squeezed for these profits, painful.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46070915
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50145248
(non profit, coop, and muni grids can go to the bond market just like an investor owned utility to borrow for grid investment capital, so this is not an excuse for investor owned utilities to exist)
Natural monopolies are always the first suggestions to keep public owned. And you can't have 2 water suppliers piping into your apartment from the source