On Comcast here in the bay area. Some sites are fine. Some are just gone. Luckily, my corp VPN endpoint is accessible, and if I VPN out, I can get to everything again.
Maybe they were overloaded from all of the additional traffic they got sent?
Disrupting your paying customer's access with unannounced 'tests' is a sure-fire way to torpedo your brand value and rating.
When your company name is so hated by the public that you have to re-brand your flagship product "Xfinity" to distance it from yourself, you know you're running a crappy company.
Edit: I know the <reasons>, but the debate about that is not particularly relevant here.
Except you can't actually do that. There's a huge list of companies you simply can not choose to ignore. That's sort of why monopoly/oligopoly is so evil, and why strong independent antitrust action is so critical for preserving freedom.
Yes, you can escape all companies if you live like a hermit in a prepper dungeon on your property (that you somehow purchased while 'ignoring all companies' with money you got ahold of by 'ignoring all companies'), That is technically one form of freedom. But most people define Freedom a bit more broadly than that.
I agree that I probably understand "freedom" differently than most, but my definition demands nothing from my fellow citizens (which is what "companies" are made of). :)
Distance.
America has states and even counties larger than many countries. And even where there are lots of people, population density is typically less than most other nations.
Distance is a killer in last-mile applications like internet.
See also: Australia.
On average, houses in Sweden and closer together. Apartments are smaller than the U.S.
Perhaps instead of "last mile," the term should be "last meter."
Contrast Los Angeles. There, Stokab’s business model would be illegal. Builiding out based on demand might mean that wealthier neighborhoods would get fiber a decade before poorer neighborhoods. Disproportionately, white residents would get fiber before hispanic residents. That would be politically untenable (and would be completely impossible to put the government’s imprimpteur behind such an effoet as with Stokab). For that reason, most US cities make Stokab’s business model illegal.
Los Angeles had a fiber proposal: https://www.wired.com/2013/11/la-fiber. It tried to get companies to build a fiber network. By contrast with Stockholm’s approach, neighborhood income and population density could not be a “factor” in the rollout. That means that any ISP would have to build to new neighborhoods that were not economically justifiable. The ISP moreover would have to provide a minimum level of free access to all residents. It would thus have to recover the cost of that from other residents, driving the price higher and decreasing the competitiveness of the product. Unsurprisingly, nobody took up Los Angeles on that proposal. Nobody would build it, it made no business sense.
In Stockholm, fiber was a simple business proposition, built with private capital. In California, it was a social justice initiative, unattractive to private capital. Which is not necessarily itself a problem, but if you want to do that you need to be willing to build it with public money.
I know what you mean when you say this, but there are strong differences between American ideals and American realities. When there's a conflict of interest between a large company and consumers, I think it's a safe bet to assume the company in America comes out ahead.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/350979/comcast-is-americas-most-h...
A variation of the bong native to SouthWest England, where a straight tube is used instead of a conventional "gauze type" bong tube.
The end of the shottie tube (also known as a downie or downpipe/tube) is plugged with a small amount of rolling tobacco, onto which a thin layer of crushed or chopped cannabis is applied. The user then lights the cannabis/tobacco plug until such time as all of the cannabis glows red and the plug can be seen to slide down the tube. At this point, the user gives a sharp tug to pull the cannabis/tobacco into the bong water, the smoke is then inhaled, providing the user with a more intense hit than that provided by conventional smoking paraphenalia, this means shotties provide a both economical and enjoyable smoking experience