I know what you're getting at, but for the Socratic sake of things, I have bad news! :D
Electricity that is too cheap to meter is possible today. I'm pretty sure that we are technologically capable of producing enough solar panels to supply reasonable energy needs (ignoring AI data center nonsense, for now). I think this is happening already in certain countries, but the economics of it get weird, because even as a public utility, you have to charge something. A market that drives prices down to almost nothing will then cease to exist, and powerful people don't want that to happen.
The real solution is that governments should just build out power capacity and provide electricity as a service to its citizens, like healthcare and education. The solution we'll probably get is some Dickensian torment nexus where orphans are pushed into a meat grinder and our electric bills go up.
Electricity that is too cheap to meter is possible today. I'm pretty sure that we are technologically capable of producing enough solar panels to supply reasonable energy needs (ignoring AI data center nonsense, for now). I think this is happening already in certain countries, but the economics of it get weird, because even as a public utility, you have to charge something. A market that drives prices down to almost nothing will then cease to exist, and powerful people don't want that to happen.
The real solution is that governments should just build out power capacity and provide electricity as a service to its citizens, like healthcare and education. The solution we'll probably get is some Dickensian torment nexus where orphans are pushed into a meat grinder and our electric bills go up.