Sunday, January 20, 2019
Mode switch
Tesla charging stations, formerly free or cheap, have suddenly raised their prices to about the same as gas on a per-mile basis.
The cultists are revolting.
There are three mutually exclusive systems of economics at play. Tesla tries to mix all three, but the mix is predictably coming apart.
1. Ordinary economics as defined in textbooks. When commodities like gas and electricity are substitutes serving the same purpose, they will converge to the same price per unit of usefulness. You can expect some variation for convenience or status, but not a huge difference.
2. Cult economics as seen in Hubbard and Prosperity Gospel. Members are expected to pay insanely high prices for the exclusive services and products of the cult, which aren't really useful services. Cultists believe that these services give them supernatural powers, justifying the supernatural price. Tesla uses cult pricing for "full self driving" and other nonfunctional or nonexistent features.
3. Family economics. This includes clan-like structures such as Open Source forums, familiar to Tesloids. Members of the family or clan are expected to be loyal defenders and advertisers of the family, and in return get cheap or free services.
The supercharger has just switched from family to normal pricing and the Tesloids are understandably angry. They should be happy that the chargers haven't YET switched to cult pricing.
¶ 11:51 PM 
