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Still Little To Do About a Bad ISP
theY4Kman writes "The Washington Post reinforces the grim situation on Net Neutrality and limited ISP choices faced by Americans: 'The FCC's research shows that 78 percent of American households have access to only two land-based broadband providers and that 13 percent have one. Don't expect that to improve. Many competing DSL services have left the market, spurred by the end of line-sharing in 2005 and other corporate consolidations. A few months ago, for instance, AT&T elected to close its WorldNet DSL service. Meanwhile, technologies that were once promoted as alternatives to phone and cable-based services have flopped. City-wide WiFi access ... turned out to be a business bust. The power-line broadband that then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell lauded as having "great promise" in 2004 fared no better: Last week, Manassas voted to unplug its pioneering service. ... We have a situation full of lawyerly jargon, with risks that can't be dramatized by putting a sick kid on a stage. I hope you like your Internet provider, because you may be stuck with it for a while.'"
If I can have my choice of shitty banks, why can't I have my choice of shitty ISPs?
Lobbying. They lobby to make it appear that Internet access is a scarce resource. This is, of course, bullshit.
Internet access is an infinite resource depending only on how much capacity they build into their networks.
They prefer to keep their capacity artificially low the same way the chinese yuan is artificially devalued.
Thus they can charge more for it than it's actually worth.
They're using their grammar skills there.