Well, I suppose they could just take out the stretch of power line between me and my neighbors who use their service and cut down those maintenance costs altogether!

This isn’t like a driveway, it’s more like a road. It’s used by more people than the people whose property it’s in front of. And where I live, the property owner is considered to be the owner of the lines that extend from the grid to the home, so guess who already pays the maintenance costs on that?