HeyBub wrote:

At $20/hr, all things considered, it costs the power company about
$1/month to read your meter.

A "smart" meter costs about $200 and about $40 worth of labor to
install it.

I don't buy your estimated price of $200.

So, then, for all that, the power company will recoup the expense
for buying and installing the meter in 240 months, about 20 years.

Obviously the power company can't make economic sense with this
scenario.

No - that's why they have added either completely new line-items on your
bill, or have increased existing ones.

I guess that's why they're charging me a few bucks per month for
this shiny new meter.

And now tell me how that's working out for the customer.

Aside:

(stuff about a pole)

What's that got to do with this discussion?