Not quite. One has to add the cost of capital, depreciation of assets, insurance and other operating expenses to the product price also. For example, these robots are not "free" and themselves require raw materials to build so their initial and operating costs must be amortized over all the stuff they pick. Similarly, the warehouses don't just spring spontaneously from the ground when Bezos says "let there be a warehouse".

and far more costly at night

A great opportunity for an innovator to develop lunar panels to supplement solar panels! That reduces the problem to moonless nights.

One problem with discussions like this is that there is a lack of consistency in titles and job role naming across companies.

For example, in some companies first level managers of developers are not very technical (fortunately, I've never worked at a company where this was the norm) and can only manage work units and people but not solve technical problems themselves or provide detailed technical guidance. They can be good people managers, good at working the politics, good at making sure that the project dependencies (both inward and outward) are being tracked, and good at protecting the group from abuse. However, they need to rely on project leaders/lead programmers for the technical stuff. In other companies (fortunately, the most of the ones I've worked at as a developer or a manager), managers are de facto project leads and/or psuedo-architects and are able to (and do) look at code, review specs, make technical decisions when necessary.

Similar story for "project managers". At some companies they just push lines around on PERT charts and note and track that there's an issue that needs to be resolved by next Thursday about if the asdfasdf is to provide some data to the lklkjfsdf or if the lklkjfsdf should independently fetch it. At other companies, "project managers" would actually know what asdfasdf and lklkjfsdf were and be able to understand, at some level, that lklkjfsdf couldn't possibly independently fetch the data because security policies don't allow it no matter how loudly the owner of asdfasdf insists otherwise (and, knows who/how to bring in to shut the owner of asdfasdf up).

It's November and 1L students have been in class for a while.

HLS should teach vocabulary on the first day of class to 1Ls - particularly the meaning of the words "frivolous" and "standing". Sad that these students managed to get an undergraduate degree without understanding the meaning of those words and their applicability to lawsuits.

OTH, maybe they will learn a lot from this experience as the judge laughs uncontrollably and the entire courtroom joins in. Oh, and sanctions them. Hopefully they get a judge who went to Yale Law School - double humiliation.

However, in a widespread outage like this, I'll bet the big cloud providers have a better record of rapid recovery than their customers had in-house. By necessity, MS, Amazon et al have very competent engineers who know the product well available to pull off what they are doing (including sleeping) and jump into any really serious problem. There simply are not enough such engineers to go around all the mid-sized IT organizations in the world nor interesting enough work to keep these engineers interested and sharp at most of these IT organizations (to say nothing of the cost of keeping such engineers around).

For a car analogy... When your high end car has a nagging problem that your local mechanic can't figure out, the dealer often can figure it out quickly, possibly with the help of a factory specialist who deals with (say) ECUs on only this make all day, every day. Rarely can an independent mechanic specialize enough to come close to the factory specialists in diagnosis. Now, if your car just has a dead battery, your local mechanic may give you faster, better, and cheaper service than the dealer.

If someone was happy to pay her $20 for it, what's the problem? Willing seller, willing buyer, free market. AC didn't say she held a gun to the buyer's head and forced him to buy it. She also didn't say that she misrepresented the machine's age or capabilities. Maybe the buyer just wanted something to sit in his workshop to look something up occasionally or do some quick calculations and this machine met his needs 100% and, at $20, he wouldn't care if he dropped it and it broke into two.

Really? In a world where responsible US web sites need to implement some sort of "we haven't gotten a national security letter in the last x seconds" sentinel in order to maintain their customers' trust and their own moral integrity?

Yes, the NSA is a necessary agency. Your local police are also a necessary agency - but surely you don't think your local police agency should be able to shoot and kill anyone that they think might be suspicious "because they are a necessary agency".

*EFFECTIVE* JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT AND PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY ARE CRITICAL TO SUCH AGENCIES IN A FREE COUNTRY.

My kingdom for mod points (I had them a few hours ago :()

Commerce relies on the web feeds directly or indirectly (it may just be a contractor deciding if they will do Job A today [inside] or Job B today [Outside painting]). It would be nice if the government shutdown the data feed with message/press release "We have been compromised by hackers and are striving to harden our systems. Meanwhile, we have shutdown the feed. Please track our every four hour posts (or more frequently) at aaa.bbb.gov for updates on progress).

On the other hand, try getting off the "no fly list" if you're a consultant with an unfortunate name (perhaps including Mohammad) who NEEDs to fly.

The US government needs to get their priorities straight and focus on important stuff and be more transparent. Hint -- some dude smoking weed or selling it to their buddy probably isn't as important as securing critical government networks.

You, obviously, don't understand time of use metering. In a regulated utility (which most are in the United States at least), TOU metering would result in higher prices for usage at times that the spot price is high (due to higher demand) than when it's low. Utilities typically buy contracts and/or have their own generating capacity for much of their anticipated usage and can predict those costs fairly well so TOU pricing would be fairly predictable (the more predictable, the higher that predictable price will be typically be -- these contracts can be modeled, in part, as options). On the margins though where demand spikes (such as due to unseasonably cloudy weather that, increasingly, will result in low solar yields and spikes in demand from customers relative to their anticipated demand), they often need to go to the spot market.

For some time variants of TOU metering has been commonly available to businesses in areas I've worked -- and there's no question that businesses alter their usage in response. Residential users are not, generally, as accustomed to this yet but will be in the future just as they are now familiar with higher rates for toll lanes based on near instantaneous congestion levels. The days of "contracted fixed rates" being the only (or the most rational) choice for consumers are numbered and utilizing less predictable sources of power (wind and solar in particular) will accelerate this transition.

This is all from the United States viewpoint of course where there may be a stronger tendency to use markets to solve problems than in some other countries.

I can sell that at the spot market or power down my plant.

Your choice if you pay the price I will charge you for it.

That is correct -- but you (and all the other suppliers acting independently in their best interests) are making similar decisions -- which then impacts the spot price as you (and all the other producers acting in independently in their best interests) offer more power on the spot market for the next hour. The utilities nearly always have to buy the power if it's available at a rational price due to regulators. These markets can break down of course as they did in the winter of 2000/2001 in California - it's worth at least skimming this report [PDF] for some analysis of this disaster.

Nope. IoT (or similar) to the rescue - mostly automated.

First, your Tesla is set to charge to x% by time y and monitors energy prices and projections to decide when to turn the charger on/off (or, even decrease charge by backfeeding into the grid to take advantage of high energy prices - you might even be able to work from home often enough to decide to skip the commute to work and drain the Tesla to 10% by the next morning).

Second, your thermostat is hooked to it - and responds quickly to price increases - you notice and respond w/sweaters or reducing clothing (depending on which guests you may have visiting at the moment -- this does, however, have some potentially interesting side benefits in select cases).

Third, your lighting is hooked to it and begins to dim lights.

Fourth, your dishwasher, dryer, and washer is/can be set up to run on a "complete by" schedule and monitor energy prices and projections to decide when to start a preloaded cycle.

Fifth, a crawl appears at the bottom of your TV when prices get really high.

Sixth, I'm sure there is a sixth.

Yes, I think they will. When depends on each person's perceived value and cost of failing to do so. Given an indicator that was hard to miss, I think the majority of middle class people in America would reduce their home electrical use substantially when power hit, say, $3/kwh - although, I suspect enough businesses and others would have cut demand long before the cost rose to $3/kwh in most cases.

Over time, most people who use electric heat or A/C would have their thermostats programed to automatically drop/increase the "on" temp significantly for modest transient increases in electricity prices.

Because the excess of supply or excess of demand are by the minute or hour, not by the week, month, or year.

It's somewhat like buying a last minute airline ticket. If people were unwilling to pay more for a last minute ticket, all tickets would cost more (fine) but it would be impossible (because the airlines would price tickets to insure every seat was sold - or oversold - many hours before wheels up to minimize the risk of a single empty seat) to get a ticket on a commercial airliner to get to mom's bedside 1500 miles away before she expires.

By increasing prices when demand approaches the absolute maximum supply, consumers will reduce demand quickly (good, since supply can't be increased quickly). When power gets expensive enough, they will shut off rooms, wear more sweaters, turn lights off, instead of cooking a fancy dinner they will nuke something in the microwave and use disposable utensils (or, just wait to wash them until the next day), they will sit around in a single room and talk instead of playing on their computer or watching TV in individual rooms. Demand is extremely elastic, supply is inelastic at the top end. In extreme cases, they will shutdown their entire house (using winter shutdown procedures as needed) and gather in friends and neighbor's houses (perhaps, splitting the cost of the very expensive power during those times).

Who is going to build a conventional power plant and get it online within a few minutes of the moment when power will be almost priceless? "Almost priceless" because there simply is no other power available because every region nearby is in the same boat of having 100% renewable, most of which vary dramatically based on weather which has been unusually unfavorable for weeks. (The answer is: No One - It's Not Possible).

Presumably, hospitals et al won't be allowed to have their own generators powered by fossil fuels in 2050 (after all, that would violate the "end the burning of fossil fuels in any form by 2050"). Perhaps, for every two floors of patients, they will have a floor of batteries which they keep charged (and, most of which, get recycled due to old age without ever having been used during a "black swan" climate/power event), but that will drive up health care costs of course.

Realistically, there probably needs to be a tax on anyone connected to the grid to pay for, ironically, fossil (and, perhaps?, nuclear) powered power plants to be kept on standby for a few hours a decade of use. Ironic, because we are used to "green taxes". As well, each meter will probably need a way to cut amperage (and communicate to the house electrical control system) to fairly distribute the limited power -- you decide if you want your refrigerator or your 02 concentrator powered in a limited power shutdown and you will bid for the power you need to buy in a real time market.

It's true that Police, and usually Fire, services are included in your tax bill (directly or perhaps indirectly if you're a renter for example). However, these are not easily "metered" utility services. And, at least on some areas, you will get a bill from the City if you call the Paramedics come to your house unless you pay an annual subscription fee. These services are also for the common good (the person who calls the police is not the one that necessarily benefits from getting the murderer off the street for example or if your neighbor's house is on fire even if it's a complete loss by the time the Fire Department gets there, it's in your interest tha they attack the fire before it spreads and burns down the entire block). These services realistically can't be "metered". Also, it was once fairly common in some areas to subscribe to a fire service -- if you didn't subscribe, and your neighbor did, the service they subscribed to would protect your neighbor's house and not lift a finger to put your house fire out unless doing so would help save your neighbor's house.

Internet service is really much more similar to a utility - in fact it IS a utility. Few cities provide free utilities. Sometimes they offer subsidies for low income residents (life-line rates for example). Private companies often provide the service instead of the city (where I live, all these utilities are provided by a private company -- the resident pays the private company, not the government, for the services - just as they pay Comcast or AT&T for their internet service).

There are some services like education, medical care and child care that are cheaper and more efficient for the government to deliver

Is this why there are relatively few areas in the US where people with money send their kids to public schools? Is it likely that these people prefer an inferior education for their kids and are willing to shell out a lot of money for that while still paying taxes for superior educational services they have chosen not to use? Hmm... Sounds unlikely to me. My, admittedly limited, sample set of people I know who do choose to pay to send their kids to private school certainly don't do it because they are seeking an inferior education for their spawn.