> " You probably can’t tell me how much electricity your home is using right now, and may only come within tens of dollars of accurately predicting your water bill. But neither of those bills are all that scary, because you assume there’s a limit to how much you could run them up in a single billing interval. "
I had a $600 surprise water bill. It was (partially) forgiven because the water department could drive to my house and see evidence of the leak next to my water meter. It did turn out to be on my side of the meter, so it is my responsibility.
If the water department had driven to my house and seen evidence of commercial agriculture (so to speak), then it would not have been forgiven.
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The parallel here is that the water department can't come into my house uninvited - the cloud provider SHOULD NOT have intimate access to the running code, but they are able to observe some patterns without 'breaking in'.
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Side note: the size of the bill and the amount of forgiveness was largely driven by waiving an 'excess usage' surcharge - similar to how you can get a discount for cloud service reservations.
Water billing is indeed nonlinear with no cap. I had a surprise $3000 excess water bill due to a broken connection at the meter. Followed by a $3000 excess sewer bill (!) because the assumption is if I used $3000 of water, it must have gone down the drain. However, if you demonstrate to an inspector that the water must have leaked below ground (as in this case) there’s a process for getting the second charge waived. Unfortunately the leak was on our side of the meter, so the first charge was correct, though we got partial forgiveness.
So, when they read the meter, and saw that it was flooded at the meter or nearby, they didn't think to mention that to you? I ask because you said "surprise bill" - another comment i made explains my neighbor's water meters have a light on them that lights up if there's a leak, which the meter reader can see and the homeowner usually cannot - the only reason to not notify the homeowner of an issue is because of $.
If I recall correctly, we discovered and fixed the leak because the ground around the meter had become a mud pit, then the meter was read some time later. The size of the bill was still a surprise.
I had a $600 surprise water bill. It was (partially) forgiven because the water department could drive to my house and see evidence of the leak next to my water meter. It did turn out to be on my side of the meter, so it is my responsibility.
If the water department had driven to my house and seen evidence of commercial agriculture (so to speak), then it would not have been forgiven.
---
The parallel here is that the water department can't come into my house uninvited - the cloud provider SHOULD NOT have intimate access to the running code, but they are able to observe some patterns without 'breaking in'.
---
Side note: the size of the bill and the amount of forgiveness was largely driven by waiving an 'excess usage' surcharge - similar to how you can get a discount for cloud service reservations.