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The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

jalopnik.com

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Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#101

Post by sam0x17 »

colechristensen wrote: post #4

The author of this article comes off as really very clueless. Yes, in fact, if a store's computers go down they don't just let customers walk out the door with products and hope they get paid eventually? As far as I understand colonial is basically a big gas station connected with a series of tubes. Look ma, the gas pump still works but it doesn't keep track of how much we pumped or charge us any more! Of course they…

This wasn't even a shitty take -- most of the developed world has government-owned utilities so the thought that the entire east coast gas infrastructure could go down just because some private company had their billing infrastructure locked up is not only laughable, it's morally outrageous. This situation is just begging for federal regulation, and that's the conversation we should be having -- should laws be passed requiring companies like Colonial to keep pumping gas (on their on dime) even when their billing infrastructure goes down? I think yes and I think most of the general public would as well.

Instead of having that discussion, we have no discussion because people like you have decided to flag this issue. This is the problem with HN.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#102

Post by sam0x17 »

mannykannot wrote: post #93
MattGaiser wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not too far fetched either to hope that their customers would be willing to self-report. Sure you might get some people who'd take advantage of the situation Would you bet millions of dollars on the goodness of the typical person?

When all parties are losing a bunch of money on acount of the shutdown, the rational choice would be to accept some lesser risk than these known losses in order to get things working to some degree, if that were technically feasible.

It shouldn't even be up to them to make a rational choice. It should be required via federal regulation on utilities.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#103

Post by sam0x17 »

IQunder130 wrote: post #81
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe you have to think about the total economic impact for the article and frustration to make more sense. Fuel is a very fundamental part of our economy and almost always goes toward producing much more value than the value of the fuel itself. Add to that, shortages can and do contribute to irreversible losses like loss of life. If every gas distributor shut down because ransomware hit them all, you could c…

>It's not too far fetched either to hope that their customers would be willing to self-report. Spoken like someone who has never done business.

Spoken like someone who would let critical public infrastructure get privatized by a corporate monopoly.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#104

Post by IQunder130 »

sam0x17 wrote: post #103
IQunder130 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not too far fetched either to hope that their customers would be willing to self-report. Spoken like someone who has never done business.

Spoken like someone who would let critical public infrastructure get privatized by a corporate monopoly.

Somewhat of a moot point when said infrastructure is already private. You can use the misaligned incentives to argue against private ownership of infrastructure, but criticizing a business for doing business is barking up the wrong tree.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#105

Post by sam0x17 »

IQunder130 wrote: post #104
sam0x17 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like someone who would let critical public infrastructure get privatized by a corporate monopoly.

Somewhat of a moot point when said infrastructure is already private. You can use the misaligned incentives to argue against private ownership of infrastructure, but criticizing a business for doing business is barking up the wrong tree.

It's not a moot point if we can create regulation or government takeover of said infrastructure. Conversations like this are the first step towards creating those kinds of regulations. It's only moot if you make it moot. When a private business completely controls a public utility and fails to act in the public's interest it is time to have this conversation because they have their hands all over something that should be in the hands of the public.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#106

Post by IQunder130 »

sam0x17 wrote: post #105
IQunder130 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat of a moot point when said infrastructure is already private. You can use the misaligned incentives to argue against private ownership of infrastructure, but criticizing a business for doing business is barking up the wrong tree.

It's not a moot point if we can create regulation or government takeover of said infrastructure. Conversations like this are the first step towards creating those kinds of regulations. It's only moot if you make it moot. When a private business completely controls a public utility and fails to act in the public's interest it is time to have this conversation because they have their hands all over something that shoul…

My point is that any business would have done the same. Expecting one to not look out for its own bottom line and rely on the kind heartedness of its customers is misguided. The problem is with the game, not the player.
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