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Comment by owebmaster | Hacker News Reader

I've been in Buenos Aires for 3 months in the beginning of the year and I can assure you that if this government stays all startups will shutdown due to impossibility to pay electric and other bills.

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The good old days of the previous government, where you could have a warehouse of GPUs mining bitcoins with subsidized electrical bills, are sadly over. Now people have to pay for what they use, like in any reasonable part of the world. Or is there any other country that provides electricity for ridiculous prices where all these startups you say will close will move to?

Well if you are really asking it, Paraguay has really cheap electricity. They sell back most of what they produce because they don't use it.

But no, not needed. If the bill really had to go up, do it progressively, not in one shot so you don't get everybody unprepared. If you think it by another angle, a 700% increase is a hell of a tax for technology companies or garage projects.

I'm from Buenos Aires and I can assure you that this is outright false. Buenos Aires is the largest population center of Argentina and has had heavily subsidized (e.g. electricity bills of 2 USD are not uncommon) utilities for almost a decade . In the rest of the country these subsidies rarely exist, so everyone else pays a realistic price.

My electric bill has gone up about 500% in the last 3-4 years. It's still very damn cheap, especially compared to what people pay in many more advanced countries.

Buenos Aires has cheap electricity. My electric bill is around >2K pesos in summer (I'm from the north of Argentina). I agree with taking out subsidies where the electricity is cheap, but they removed them for everybody from one day to another. There are too many cases of small business with unafordable gas & electric bills.

Yeah, bills went from 2 USD to 30 USD. And the dollar from 8 pesos to 16. If cheap electricity doesn't help technology companies, I don't know what helps. Sure isn't "entrepreneur's laws", because most of projects fail way before really need it, like when the founders (or wannabe) can't pay their bills (and quit their jobs, if they are lucky to have one).

It was only 8 pesos for very small amounts authorized by the government, the street price was already 14/15.

Did you check your bills lately?

It's actually a reasonable price like in the rest of the world but it was effectively raised with 400% or something

I live outside the city, we had subsidies taken away long before Macri became president. I've actually seen my electricity bill go down because I saved compared to the same period in previous years.

I'm also from Argentina and I support this.

What? The highest electricity bill I ever paid is 400 pesos (~26 USD) a month. If your startup can't pay that, much less it can pay salaries.

Pardon me sir, but you are talking out of your ass.

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