If the floor is gentle, people can actually reduce usage without feeling punished for doing the right thing.
At the moment the baseline tier feels… maybe a “C-rating” version of what a real baseline could be?
The effective income tax rate for many SF Bay Area techies is around 50%. Do we jack it up to 65% so that PG&E bills can go down from $400 to $100, like almost everywhere else in the country?
At that point the debate isn’t about pricing — it’s about survival of the system.
I could outline the full methodology behind this view, but that would turn the thread into a private seminar — and that’s not what comment sections are for.
We’ve become an incredibly selfish nation on average, and until these systems collapse and people get to feel the hot stove, they aren’t going to change their minds about keeping any sort of system or infrastructure in place