Only because the energy companies are ripping them off. For the sake of their liberty and freedom they should make sure that the grid works for them, and that the monopolies that are allowed to profit from supplying them (e.g. with right of way for infrastructure) do so responsibly.
Unfortunately, that's un-American.
I had a chance to witness the difference between the grid driven West Berlin and the common good driven East Berlin before the wall failed. The difference mind boggling. Same people, same language, same history, same culture and yet the grid driven side was flourishing and the common good driven side looked like a depressing desert of building.
Grid is good motivator. We wouldn't have most of the good things we have now without grid, probably no not youtube and eevblog.
There is a huge difference between a command economy, like the old eastern bloc and a mixed economy, like modern day China or most of western Europe back in the 70s.
A command economy will always fail to deliver growth because one central governing body can't possibly meet everyone's needs and there's a total lack of any competition, in every sector.
In a mixed economy, the state owns the infrastructure, i.e the power grid, road, rail network etc. where competition can't exist anyway and the rest of the economy is privately owned and regulated by the government as necessary.
With the current system. If one gets pissed off with the electricity grid, they can't choose who distributes the power to them. It's not possible to change. The wires, circuit breakers and distribution transformers will always be owned by whoever operates the grid, whether it be the sate, EDF or whatever, irrespective of the energy supplier, so competition cannot exist.
The grid is better off state owned. At least then our government can control it, rather than EDF, a French company and it can be operated as a public service, not for the benefit of a foreign power. that way, if people get pissed off with the grid, they can protest and vote in a different government who'll do something about it. At the moment, with a French company controlling our grid, we're fucked.