Basic economics doesn’t work where there is infrastructure to maintain. Short-term they market this stuff as saving consumers money etc., but long-term they will need usage to go up or the infrastructure will crumble.
Cleveland is learning the lesson now with regards to water usage. For years we were hounded to preserve our precious Great Lakes water. Low flow shower heads, toilets, washing machines all to preserve and conserve. And supposedly we’d have these benefits for years to come...
Not even a generation has passed since that mantra started and between the EPA regulations on the sewer and the Water Dept. crumbling infrastructure...the price of a shower has gone up 125%. And even if you are cutting back on personal consumption of these “products,” you are still going to pay for them as an add-on fee. There is no way around them.
One must differentiate between public and private infrastructure. Roads, bridges, water supplies, sewers and sewage treatment are traditionally publicly built and maintained. Most electric and gas utilities are privately owned and operated although heavily regulated and are known in economics as “natural monopolies”.