> it will lure enough customers away that your ISP will need to treat you better (for fear that you might be lured away).
I'm worried that the end-game is that you'll still be stuck with equally-shitty providers, just that instead of having to take one turd you'll be able to pick between two equally-smelly ones.
It's not like Comcast support or billing is any better in areas where they have competition, and outside of rare areas where there are local competitors (municipal broadband, etc), Comcast's competition in the form of Verizon/Cox/Spectrum isn't any better and has exactly the same flaws.
The only thing they can potentially compete on is price, but my understanding is that price is never really the problem, it's all the hidden costs such as surcharges/billing issues, technical issues where tech support is horrible and you end up with no internet for days/weeks, etc - something you can't predict in advance when choosing a provider.
As someone who's dealt with a number of providers across multiple countries, my takeaway is that the entire telecoms industry is rotten and the only solution is to expect them to be shit, plan in advance for when they screw you over (such as maintaining a backup connection) and not give them any leverage (no long-term contracts) so that you can just walk away when they become a problem.