... and somewhere, a group venture capitalists is listening to a presentation by a scrappy young man pushing his idea.  'We disrupted the high street, we disrupted bookselling and supermarkets and democracy: now we're going to disrupt something bigger than all that, we're going to disrupt water.'  'Yes,' they think, 'yes.  Here, have our money'.

From @fletchmonger on Bluesky:

As someone who literally increases water rates for a living, the big drivers over the last decade have been inflation (40% over the last decade!), climate change, and replacing assets that were federally funded in the 70s when the clean water act was passed.

2/3rds of this increase is straight inflation. Utilities use a lot of concrete, energy, and labor, three segments that have been especially impacted by inflation over the last decade.

This is another way the boomers have benefitted from federal support while our generation is left holding the bag to replace all these assets they used without considering funding replacement reserves for them. Utilities are playing catchup after having subsidized water rates for the last 50+ years

These larger-than-inflation increases aren't stopping any time soon thanks to tariffs and the war in Iran.