Dome: Dry Idea Number 5?

Maybe I missed Dome's post on how water pricing will help cure us of overconsumption.

But interestingly, while Ryan Teague Beckwith touts Seattle as a city of H2O transparency (no pun), as far as I know he's failed to mention that Seattle, among a number of more arid cities in the arid Western U.S., uses full cost pricing!

Seriously, why is there almost a universal hostility to charging people for what they consume? If you're worried about poor people having water to flush, brush and make Kool-Aid, then charge full cost after X units. But to keep rich people from watering 40 acres and corporations from freeriding off the population, charge people based on scarcity. You'll see people turning into creative conservationists left and right.
-Max Borders