"George Pearson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Exactly right: "he should pay for only the amount of the product he WANTS >to purchase (i.e. EXPECTS to use)". So it would also be a violation of >this rule to force a boater to pay a license fee based on his maxiumum >possible cruising range. Forcing such a fee would be an abuse of monopoly >power.
The analogy I suggest is to (electricity) utilities, under whose tariffs you pay a standing charge and a usage charge. Forget the usage charge, though, because BW has said that the marginal cost to it of usage (i.e. a boat navigating) is effectively nil. Look at the standing charge. Typically, the higher the capacity (in kW) of your connection to the grid, the more you pay per period irrespective of how much, if any, electricity you use. If you know that on occasion you will need to draw an especially high amperage, you have to acquire a higher capacity connection for the whole time you are connected to the grid, not just for the time during which you are drawing a lot of power. For waterways, the deal boaters seem to want is on in which the licence gives you unlimited km or days of cruising. OK, then the boat owner should pay what is in effect a standing charge for his access to the network, which gives him the right to that unlimited usage. However, since BW has no way of knowing (or feasibly of enforcing I think) where that boat might go, it sensibly can insist that what it is offering as its standing charge is access to *all* the waterways that the boat can reach and use from its home mooring. II think i would indeed be possible to follow your point and allow the boater to specify the list of waterways that he wants a licence for ), even though he could (physically) navigate further. However, I think this would reduce the overall total of accessable km that BW could sell (to all boaters) each year. Nevertheless BW's total take from boaters would need to remain the same, so all that would happen is that BW's price (£/standing charge km) would have to rise, probably significantly. This would discourage everyone from buying more extensive access, which would discourage boats moving generally and certainly long trips about the network. So, although I acknowledge your logic, I think the negative impacts of the scheme would be so serious that it would never be adopted. Adrian . Adrian Stott 07956-299966
