So in my mind there are two parts to publicly funded projects. One is whether the spending of funds is worth it and another is whether the people have a choice.

We think that by definition that when private companies have programs, they're not spending public money but I'd argue (somewhat controversial I agree) that any tax break is public money. Also the second part of whether participation is mandatory. I'd say if an ISP has a de facto Monopoly in a market, then we could say participation is mandatory. I hope this part is less controversial.