Oh, I agree. There are huge distortions that have delayed the roll out of fiber internet by decades. But money talks, and ISPs are now building huge fiber networks in some parts of the country in spite of the best efforts of our government. I subscribe to Ziply Fiber (<https://ziplyfiber.com/internet>) which is building a large network in the Pacific Northwest that provides superb service to millions. They’re not perfect, but they’ll provide up to 50Gbps (symmetric) service to residential customers across four states. Compared to Comcast/Xfinity, which tops out at 2Gbps × 300Mbs, Ziply is amazing. That’s the free market fixing the problem in spite of the distortions introduced by local monopolies.

And that competition is definitely a good thing. Xfinity’s offering was far worse before they had competition because there was no incentive to offer anything better. They’ve even introduced a new idea to the market in order to win people back away from fiber: guaranteed fixed prices for five years. No surprises when promotional rates expire, no price increases, no shenanigans at all for five whole years. That alone is a breath of fresh air compared to their own business practices of just a year or two ago. Ziply had to respond by lowering their prices and ending promotional rates because they were losing customers. You know the old saying: as iron sharpens iron, so too does man sharpen man.

It would be better, of course, if the government were not mismanaging things. Switzerland’s solution is the better way to go than what we have today. Their government paid to build a nation–wide fiber network, and any ISP can service any customer on that network. That allows ISPs to compete on price and features without worrying about having to build their own competing and overlapping network. This is already how electric service works in many states, so it’s not even like we can’t make it work.