Editorial: SmartMeters should be Opt-Out

[Barry]

Now that the PUC has finally coming around to allowing Opt-Out of the SmartMeter program, the question remains: should it be opt-in or opt-out?

One of our members posted, along with the SF Chronicle, that it should be opt-in:

A small monthly fee is just a foot-in-the-door to a big fat one justified later...
{snip}
...Customer choice should have been an opt-in all along.
...
Read more: https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...#ixzz1GutRmGrI

Point taken, but its not clear to me that it's the best course.

Strangely, as a programmer/community space holder, combined with my, dare I say, spiritual orientation, I have a more nuanced view.

Clearly, compulsory SmartMeters were wrong and arrogant from the start. However when it comes to whether it's Opt-In or Opt-Out, it's just a question of defaults, no different than software configuration, not compulsion. Such problems are a luxury! Everybody can have it the way they want it, if they try! :)

Defaults are important!

How the default is set makes a huge difference. Most things work according to defaults. It's part of our functioning as a society sometimes, often for good, but too many times not. When we function as a society, co-cooperatively, there are huge gains/savings to be had.

Let's take PG&E-specifically out of the equation for a moment...

What if by accepting the smart meter, as a default, we could eliminate the most polluting/most costly 10-20% sources of energy? Or not build the next power plant? Wouldn't that be cool?

That seems like a really large gain for society and the planet for just a simple "default" setting, while honoring individual sovereignty! Seems like this is another opportunity for having your cake (choice) and it eating too (efficiency). Or as it is more commonly put, a win-win!

Don't let your justified anger and resentment from not having a choice (compounded by how rudely PG&E handled it), keep you from seeing the right answer that was there from the beginning.

The SmartMeter is just a missing 2-way nerve cell between parts of the human body (society) and its nutrition system (energy production). It lets the users know the cost to society of energy at any given moment. Given that it is very inefficient to store the stuff, load-balancing electric demand, and thus production, is a big deal. And it's a great way for people to be green, shift their behavior, and act in a communal fashion. Without it, it's like going grocery shopping with wildly varying prices that shift each hour, and not being able to know the price, but still having to pay it!

And if you don't want to play along, for any reason, then Opt-Out, and kick in a few bucks just to make sure it's important to you, along with covering the cost of your action to society.

It's not really about the cost of reading the meter, or even "the hidden social & environmental costs", it's about behaving inefficiently and literally "inconsiderately" (you are not considering the costs). It should not cost the same price to run your electric dryer between 5 and 7 pm as it does as after 9 pm. Believe me, I know the huge difference in people's behavior when something that is free and when it cost literally 2-cents! (Speaking of which, my beloved New York Times announced a new "pay wall" today).

So again, if you don't like it, don't do it, but I think that it should be easy, but not the default, and relatively cheap (permanently $3/month ?) but not free.

[Runningbare]

Barry,

I was wrong about the foot-in-the-door. They used a battering ram, and there is no door left. $3/month, what were you thinking? You did get it right about "not free".
Read and weep what transpired at the CPUC meeting yesterday.
https://www.mercurynews.com/business...nclick_check=1