Why would it be too cheap to meter? You're still heating up water and putting it through a turbine. We've been doing that for ages (just different sources of energy for the heating up part) and we still meter energy because these things cost money and need lots of maintenance.

But that's the whole reason fusion is so important. Just like it was the whole reason fission was so important.

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/history-10...

As we have more and more solars, we see rises for being connected to the grid more and more while electricity stays relatively cheap. Fusion won't change that, somebody has to pay for the guy reconnecting cables after a storm

And we'll use it all to run more crypto/AI/next thing

Residential will still cost more somehow.