ISPs would have been more than happy to show the middle finger to the WFH engineers, but not to the binge-watching masses.
Couldn't agree more.
We see the opposite when it comes to broadband monopolies: "barely good enough" DSL infrastructure, congested HFC, and adversarial relationships w.r.t. subscriber privacy and experience.
When it became worthwhile to invest in not just peering but also last-mile because poor Netflix/YouTube/Disney+/etc performance was a reason for users to churn away, they invested.
This isn't to say that this is all "perfect" for consumers either, but this tension has only been good for consumers vs. what we had in the 90's and early-mid 00's.
I have been spoiled with symmetric 1Gbps up and down fiber for a few years, and using the internet is like turning on the electric or gas or water, you do not ever have to think about it.