What you said was:

> You must live in a shack wtf

Do you stand by that? Or do you now realize that it's possible to have bought something in the past?

> You don't respond in the first place claiming your house is 2k a month when you bought it years ago

They were quantifying their housing spend so OP could take that into account. In no way were they saying that OP could buy a house with a $2k mortgage today. They didn't even make claims about affordability for OP, just laid out their situation for OP to judge.

You responded to a person saying their mortgage was 2k and said they must live in a shack, and asked for examples of non-shacks for that price. OP buying a house now is irrelevant to that point. It seems like you just forgot that people could buy things in the past, and now you're moving the goalposts rather than just admitting you were mistaken and being a jerk.

...yes?

Right on with Aldi, it's so good that every other grocery store is ruined for me. Hard to find anything, and when I do find what I want I'm appalled by the price.

As for internet, FIOS has been great for us if it's available in your/OP's area. $39.99/month all-in for 300/300 MBIT up/down. Has never changed since we signed up like 3 years ago. Turns out, competition is good and when Verizon has to fight Cox and others, we win.

>show me a single instance of where you only need to pay 2k / month for a fucking reasonable house in Rhode island

I didn't downvote, but if I qualify: my mortgage including tax and insurance is $1,710.72 on a 2,700 SF 4 bed/3 bath.

It is so incredibly unfair to anyone who has to buy now over even just a few years ago like us. The house across the street from us that is comparable to ours (or if anything, worse) just sold for literally double what we bought ours for in 2018.

Hah yeah, can't imagine that would be the wisest approach. But then again, those word-of-mouth places with actually decent landlords could save you hundreds of dollars every month over the well-advertised "market price" places, so it could be worth some real time investment. But, again, I know nothing beyond a couple secondhand stories.

Those are perfect examples. How much does your TV cost to run? How much more (or less) are you spending with a "smart" fridge over a "dumb" one? What is the value of that vampire current when everything is "off"? Literally, tell me. Dollars and cents. How much is it for you? How much less will you spend if you set the AC to 76 instead of 74? How much does a shower cost per minute? How much do you save taking a "hot" shower instead of a "scalding hot" shower?

That does seem like a distinct possibility

I wonder how common that is. I have heard similar anecdotes a couple times recently, people deliberately keeping listings offline to avoid non-locals, investors, floods of requests, etc.

Oh neat, I didn't realize that theft was anything more than a drop in the bucket. Thanks for the info!

>My name is Murphy, and that is my law.

Hah, fair enough. I'm sorry to deny your identity like that. It was unfair, and I am sorry.

> So they'll add $380 to my bill, to make their lives easier and fire couple meter readers to save costs ?

Well yeah, basically. With a few extra notes that the owner will have a couple additional tools too, early replacement will reduce surprise failures, it will allow them to track and fix outages faster, and the cost savings will hypothetically pay for the upfront cost.

Then it doesn't seem to be part of the proposal, but these meters will also unlock the ability to have different rates at different times of the day, which can save everyone money by reducing peak loads, and help attentive consumers spend even less money on energy.

Only via public comment hearings (which as the article notes were canceled for this topic), which the PUC is not obligated to heed anyway. Or I guess by voting for the governor who appoints the commission members, but that's never going to be a headline platform of any ticket.

Yeah on paper it sounds like this initial investment will/should pay for itself in the long term and benefit everyone involved.

But in reality, I'm sure we will get some of those tech benefits, but never see that hypothetical cost savings.

Yeah how dare they consider upgrading our grid to prepare for the future. We want to be like Texas and just ignore shit until it breaks then spend twice as much fixing it!

> how literally fucking every company ever has operated.

Not only companies, every organization. Even if electricity were provided by a non-profiting municipal department (as it should be), they would still need to pay for their costs somehow. That money is either coming from customers paying a charge proportional to their usage, or it's coming from a broader tax that will make efficient users subsidize heavy consumers. I'm sure you can guess which I would vote for.

So what is your opinion, businesses should charge less than it takes to provide their service, and the extra money comes from...?

That's....not Murphy's law.

Besides, waiting for stuff to break then scrambling a crew for one-off emergency repairs is going to end up being way more expensive than methodically sending crews through each neighborhood to swap out meters.

edit: doing some math, this will amount to a cost of $380/meter to replace. There's no way an emergency break fix visit will be remotely that cheap. You'd be hard pressed to source parts that cheap, let alone the labor of getting an electrician to install them, and ignoring the cost and hassle of losing power when the old meter unexpectedly fails. Beyond that, the smart meters will be cheaper to read since it requires no time on site, not even a drive-by wireless read like ~50% of the meters have now.

> Why do we have to pay for their burdens??? Makes no sense.

You're not sure why a business should charge enough to cover the costs of delivering their product?

Are you over at Wickford Appliance insisting that they sell appliances at a loss and remodel their stores with imaginary money from somewhere other than their customers?

California shuts down entire meters in the summer?

The two-way communication in these new meters will help eliminate emergency blackouts by matching demand more quickly.

> I can't think of a single meter-based choice I've made.

So if you're unconcerned with monitoring or reducing your energy usage, the smart meter might be of limited use to you.

But for other people, it would be like an energy metering smart plug, but for the whole house. Could help monitor (and reduce) your energy consumption in real time, rather than being surprised at the end of the month by some erratic usage.

Unless someone is out there with a stopwatch timing their meter spinning, in which case this wouldn't add any functionality.

That is not going to happen

> “The Advanced Metering Functionality (AMF) Business Case … we submitted to the (RI PUC) is an important step in modernizing the state’s energy infrastructure for the benefit of all Rhode Islanders. Approximately 60% of our existing meters are nearing the end of their design life and need to be replaced.”

>The power provider insists the new technologies included in the AMF proposal will provide their “customers with greater control, choice, and convenience in managing their energy consumption.”

More info here: https://www.eaton.com/us/en-us/products/utility-grid-solutions/advanced-metering-infrastructure/fundamentals-of-ami.html

edit: or here is a more objective source with more academic results: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/12/f34/AMI%20Summary%20Report_09-26-16.pdf

> Major Findings

> SGIG projects demonstrated that AMI and customer systems can achieve substantial grid impacts and benefits for customers and utilities, including:

> - Reduced costs for metering and billing from fewer truck rolls, labor savings, more accurate and timely billing, fewer customer disputes, and improvements in operational efficiencies.

> - More customer control over electricity consumption, costs, and bills from greater use of new customer tools (e.g., web portals and smart thermostats) and techniques (e.g., shifting demand to off-peak periods).

> - Lower utility capital expenditures and customer bill savings resulting from reduced peak demand and improvements in asset utilization and maintenance.

> - Lower outage costs and fewer inconveniences for customers from faster outage restoration and more precise dispatching of repair crews to the locations where they are needed.

Who said op respects themselves?

Yes, the companies have records of who rented which car when