No, not a can ... but if you buy more than, say , a case a day, then the rate
goes up. In the case of a case of beer, I'd say that if you consume more than a
case a day, you need to be charged 24x ... or maybe 2^24x. However, since your
beer isn't a commodity in critically short supply ... as electricity and telecom
system bandwidth are ... it's not likely I'd urge you be charged more for
increased consumption. If it were to become rationed, I'd happily sell you my
ration at a nominal profit.
That's why electricity might be a valid candidate for rationing. Then, the guy
who uses a dozen and a half racks of large, power-hungry full-height 5-1/4"
drives on a DEC CPU for his ISP will pay a reasonable amount, e.g $45 per kWH
while the guy who uses the most power efficient system possible, costing a bit
more per bit, as you know, with a microcomputer CPU on his single computer, and
turns off the display when he goes to the head, will only pay 5 or 6 cents per
kWH. Likewise, the guy who generates 500 TB of SPAM per month can pay 2 T$ per
bit while those of us who generate maybe 10 MB per day get ours for a flat rate,
say $15-20 per month.
What grates me, however, is that large users of electricity have lower rates,
hence, are less motivated to economize. It's the same with cars and gas
consumption. If gas cost $1 per gallon for users of less than 25 gallons per
week, $100 per gallon for users of 25..40 gal per wk, $10,000 per gallon for
people using (for all their cars) > 40 gal per wk, things would change.
Corporations would be viewed the same as individuals, by the way, so milk
delivery might go up in cost. Individuals not using their allocation could
sell that allocation to others at whatever price they can negotiate. The scheme
to which I've alluded would fix that, wouldn't it? Maybe a bit of moderation
could be applied, but you get the picture.
BTW, I don't smoke.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Robertson" <steven_j_robertson_at_hotmail.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: Wave of the Future (Spam)
> >>Likewise, as the folks in California will probably consider, the usage of
> >>MORE electrical power should not be discounted. If you use what a small
> >>household uses, you should get the minimal rate. If you use, 5x what the
> >>typical small household uses, you should pay 5x what that household uses,
> >>i.e. 5x the amount per kWH, and if you use 1000x kWH's, then you should
> >>pay 1000x the amount, per kWH that the small household has to pay. It all
> >>gets passed to the end user of the products and services that would be
> >>increased in cost. Maybe that would get some folks to turn off the TV and
> >>air-conditioning once in a while.
>
> So... If I buy a case of beer, I should pay 24X as much per can?
> WTF are you smoking?
>
> SteveRob
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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>
>
Received on Thu Jun 21 2001 - 15:10:09 BST