Just before Christmas, 130,000 PG&E customers across San Francisco were plunged into darkness for hours — with some enduring blackouts that stretched days. The timing couldn’t have been worse: It was the year’s most critical shopping weekend, when small businesses depend on last-minute gift buying to make their year.
It was an unacceptable yet predictable result of a system that allows utility monopolies to charge more and deliver less, year after year.
A utility company like PG&E is a monopoly, and the first thing you learn as a businessperson is that monopolies are terrible for customers, delivering the worst product at the highest possible price…