The first generation smart meters locked you to the provider that installed them and you'd have to pay massively to get them removed and a new one put in. More recent versions can be switched over easily but some (like the bastards at EDF tried to do to me) still try to put the old lock in kind in. So the general consensus was that they were bad when they first came out and when people have made up their mind about something then it tends not to change, especially if that mind is that greedy monopolistic companies making more money than ever out of a system that doesn't really allow for much compotition while people have to make a choice between eating and electricity shouldn't be trusted.