Economics assumes substitutability, where goods and services have alternatives in the marketplace; infrastructure reliability assumes practices for ensuring nonfungibility, where nothing can substitute for the high reliability of critical infrastructures. Without the latter, there would be no markets for goods and services, right now when selecting among those alternative goods and services. There is a point at which high reliability and trade-offs are immiscible, like trying to mix oil and water.
One way of thinking about the nonfungibility of infrastructure reliability is that it’s irrecuperable economically in real time. The safe and continuous provision of a critical service, even during (specially during) turbulent times, cannot be cashed out in dollars and cents and be paid to you instead of the service. It’s the service that is needed and real time, from this perspective, is an impassable obstacle to cashing out.
Which is to say, if you were to enter the market and arbitrage a price for high reliability of critical infrastructures, the markets transactions would be such you’d never be sure you’re getting what you thought you were buying. Economics is more often stated only so; high reliability more often demonstrated, or not.
WHEN COMPLEX IS AS SIMPLE AS IT GETS 