Ah, capitalism!
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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Loobying is bribery.
Socialize the expenses, privatize the profits. Everything is working as designed.
I participate in the "residential smart thermostat rewards" program where they can adjust my temps during high demand periods. In the past it has been like if it's 100F out they will bump my settings from 77 to 79 which is not a big deal and gets me like two weeks of free electricity.
This year those mother fuckers have been bumping the thermostat up to like 86 when it's 87 outside. Gee I wonder what the fucking difference is now? I can reject their temp settings in the app, but I can only do it like three times before they cancel my rewards. I'm half tempted to go wire up a little Arduino in series with the thermostat so I can control the AC without touching the smart thermostat if needed.
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If I got that letter I'd be on the verge of going Paper Mario on that fuckin place
You're paying thrice:
1: With your spare time in which you give advice on forums and maintain Wikipedia pages. This information is getting slurped up by AI crawlers.
2: Implicitly with your money, to get some new AI doodad on your laptop or your phone, trained on 1.
3: See meme.
And that's why billionaires exists.
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How the fuck should a loan program help paying for monthly recurring costs?!
Well, in the past (and the present in many places) perpetual unrepayable debts were used as a way to implement slavery without calling it slavery. They call it debt peonage. You know, food for thought.
the more I'm debt you get the more you owe them,
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They're putting data centers in near me (they have been heavily protested, but of course that doesn't do shit, the local government holds lots of meetings that are crowded with people saying they don't want them, and then they shrug and approve them anyway. The last meeting I heard about they just flat out cancelled because too many people were planning on coming and speaking against it). I got a letter from my power company that they're raising electric rates, and would I like to contribute to a fund to help pay other people's bill?
Replace them. Either recruit a candidate or run yourself. Ignoring your voters should have consequences.
Oh I know exactly how I'm voting next election, but the problem is that I live in a conservative area and these dumb fuckers wouldn't vote for their own self interest if you held a gun to their heads, because if they vote for things that benefit them then a brown person or someone on disability might also benefit.
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I absolutely cannot figure this out. Isn't a kwh the same price for everyone? Why would a data center pay less? (I'm not asking anyone to justify the poor decisions of energy companies)
Same as with RAM prices. There is a limited supply and the datacenters are hogging it, possibly willing to pay extra because the entire bubble depends on MORE MORE MORE, or willing to bulk purchase the entire contingent in advance.
Now if you are a power supplier you find yourself in the comfortable position of being financially courted by the datacenter corps, and you have a captured audience of consumers who rely on you supplying them, who you can now justifiably bleed out, and if they cant pay you just sell it to the datacenter after all.
It's more that everyone pays more including the data center even. It could also be related to non-generation costs such as building additional distribution infra which can be regulated as a shared cost even though the data center pays for all extra generation.
Isn't a kwh the same price for everyone?
Perversely, no. Large industrial users often get a bulk rate that's cheaper than the household rate.
Happy cake day, BTW.
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Privatized profits, socialized cost. That’s the “free market”.
There was an article I read a while ago that kind of explained it. Basically, the increased datacenter demand forces the grid operator to build more capacity, which requires money. I think there are meetings where they decide how it is distributed across all their corporate and resident ratepayers. Basically the lobbyists argue that the since this new capacity technically benefits rate payers in the form of more capacity, they should take a share of it. Even though none of us are actually going to be using that capacity...
And it doesn't help at all that the grid companies are monopolies
But correct me if I'm wrong if the data centers are the cause of the electrical increase then shouldn't they be offering to relieve the city of the cost because they're the source? Like if I wanted to run 3kw of electricity on a 220v outlet with a laboratory grade vacuum pump for an hour, I would need to pay more for my electrical bill for my house only, right? My neighbors wouldn't see a spike, I would see a spike.
My neighbors using their central air have a higher bill than me because they use more, that's always how it's been.
If they're the cause they should have to pay more than the rest of us. If they're using more energy, they should have to pay more, if they can't pay to do upfront costs with the energy companies maybe they shouldn't be building them. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 It makes you wonder who the hell is selling these people predatory contracts.
They’re paying for every kilowatt-hour they use, same as us. They are just a different ‘class’ of ratepayer (i.e. a bigger customer). The reason prices go up is not entirely just because of demand, but because there’s not enough supply, and the prices go up to cover for the cost to build it. The way I understand it is that some board has to decide how to distribute the increase in rates across their customers in order to meet the extra revenue, and the higher classes of ratepayers know that if their rate went up, that would be millions lost. So they hire lobbyists to convince the grid company to shift the cost to residential tax payers, and since neither you are me is going to march to the electric company and demand a fairer distribution, they end up shifting ‘some’ of it to us.
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Isn't sharing the bill while a small group profits exactly how capitalism works?
Debt trickles down, money trickles up
Data centers have lobbying force the citizens lack, they can negotiate for better prices.
Data centers also force power grid upgrades, the cost of which gets unfairly distributed to consumers.
And, data centers have the technology to take advantage of peak pricing, running on low power when electricity costs more and amping up when the price is more favorable.
People need to fight back in force, write their representatives, their energy companies, show up to town halls and increase public pressure to make sure data centers are paying their fair share.
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See? Trickle down economics does work! With debt.
Time to molatov cocktail the AI daracenter. A sudden unexpected fire happened. Dunno how 🤷♀️
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I don't really get how the fig leaf of "due to data-centers" is even supposed to work.
They get more demand, so more revenue. Then the fixed costs of the business are spread over more revenue, which is supposed to make the prices better not worse.
I know the profit motive is just extracting whatever the market will bear, but could anyone still explain the reasoning they are trying to make customers believe?
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