There are so many things that must be dealt with in life. Some of the things are very unpleasant, yet we put up with them because they are necessary, and a logical reason exists for them.
No one likes to pay taxes, yet we receive the benefit of those taxes each day. Roads, police protection, and public libraries are but three of the benefits of taxation.
Sometimes there are things that make no sense however, and it strains the imagination to think that these things should be allowed to remain. One of the things I have found so difficult to deal with is the unbelievable waste that I see lately. We have utilities, that we pay more for than we probably should, as it is clear that waste is a part of a public utility. What is not clear, and so difficult to process, is why a public utility, which is also a monopoly, should have the need to advertise absolutely anything at anytime.
I live in Southern California, and lately the television has been blanketed with commercials about the benefits of having Southern California Edison, and why we should all be delirious because the company is so wonderful.
Why should a company with a captive audience need to advertise? Isn’t this a waste of the cash that is paid for the electricity? I think that it is a blatant insult to the customer base – a sort of “look at what we’ve decided to do with your money” – totally unnecessary.
I suppose it could be said that the electricity provider in each area is not a monopoly, because you could decide to ‘rough it’ and do without, but that is hardly sensible, or likely. Also, it could be said that a person could invest a huge amount of money, and produce their own electricity, with battery storage for nights and cloudy days, so they would not have to submit to the reaming of a local utility. That is not very likely, as most people don’t have enough cash to outfit a house with the necessary generating apparatus, and possibly local laws would disallow any power generation on premises – the utilities have to pay off the lawmakers you know.
Utilities should be simple, reliable, and cheap – and any sort of advertising is going a long way toward removing cheap from the equation.
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[tags] Southern California Edison, public utilities, waste, unnecessary expenditures [/tags]