Too cheap to meter
Anyone remember that one? In telecomms, metering, billing and mucking out the suspense account is a painful and expensive exercise so reduced some costs by not bothering. So customers can just pay x a month and provider figures out if the mix of light vs heavy users means x is about right. No reason why energy companies couldn't do the same and offer S/M/L/Cannabis Farm bundles based on XXkWh/month. No need then to pish £12bn+ up the wall on 'smart meters'. After all, our brilliant energy policy from DECC means our energy is cheap & plentiful..
Oh, wait. It's not. Which is why Baroness Vermin talks about 'demand management' and reduction being the solution to our energy market. So the only smart thing about the meters is an ability to disconnect them when demand exceeds supply and customers have been foolish enough not to pay a premium for an uninterruptable supply contract.
If however the lil displays did something more useful than emulating a 1950's meter, and showed a rates feed from competing suppliers.. That may actually be a consumer benefit and could save consumers some money, but that's not the objective here.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
