Leaderboard

Speaking from experience. There are a lot of heavy humans. But household scales that can reliably accomodate people over 250 lbs are expensive and unavailable at most retailers. Even if the scale tops out at some high number, the accuracy tends to be questionable in the upper third and easily thrown by any movement or vibration. If you happen to be coughing, forget it. I know medical professionals have access to better equipment. But the cost is hard to justify if you are not running a clinic.

"Don't know why you are talking to me about being in the way. The tea water is still coming to a boil and you have brew time after that. So you don't need this spot for at least 6 minutes. Chill already" - Explorer the Cat.

A good comparison would be the “Robber Barons” on the Rhine River in centuries past, who would place barricades across the river to block any traffic until each vessel paid tolls. And there were dozens of such petty nobles doing this, each with their separate barricade. It eventually got so bad that the Rhine stopped being a viable route for shipping. That is what happens when there are too many unregulated fingers in a single pie. In short, we don’t want lots of small road-owners each placing their own fees such that we have to pay a hundred charges in order to cross the country. Instead, we would want nation-spanning “Road Corporations”, akin to rail or air travel, where you could cross the continent on a single company’s system, while having the choice between a few competing systems for reaching most major destinations. Of course, that brings on the same sort of regulatory issues that apply to railroads.