Every time I find myself thinking maybe the Internet Service Providers (whether cable or mobile or DSL) are not evil monopolistic assholes doing everything in their power to provide worse service for more profit, I simply have to remember that the Internet was invented in the US, but we have among the worst consumer internet service among developed nations. The US is ranked 14th or worse (depending on how you measure and who you believe, but we&#x27;re not in the top ten by any measure) in consumer broadband, in terms of speed and cost. The US is also much worse than leading nations on mobile service cost and quality. There is no scenario where the world leader in tech innovation should trail more than a dozen other nations on the most important piece of the tech puzzle, and yet we do.<p>This is the legacy of our telephone and cable monopolies. When monopolists &quot;compete&quot;, they do it by using every crooked trick in the book. The telcos and cable companies have a significant number of politicians and regulators in their pockets. All to keep services cheap to provide and expensive to buy.<p>And, we&#x27;re losing ground. Things aren&#x27;t getting better for consumers, despite the new spectrum opening up; our government made huge amounts of low frequency spectrum available to telcos (at a price, of course), on the assumption that they&#x27;d use it to improve service and lower costs. No mobile provider offers actually unlimited data anymore, at any price. I used to have <i>two</i> unlimited mobile data plans at $45 and $55. Now, I have two plans that cost more and are capped at ridiculously small amounts of data. Land line providers have also now imposed caps, and have, with increasing regularity, tried to sneak through legislation allowing them to regulate the Internet to their own advantage.<p>Imagine a situation where a cable company can rate limit NetFlix to the point of unwatchability...or maybe just enough so you can&#x27;t get a nice clear HD picture. Conveniently, cable company will be happy to sell you HBO, which includes HBO Go, and they&#x27;ll generously provide unlimited access to <i>that</i> data. This isn&#x27;t a paranoid theory, this is actually what the legislation they&#x27;ve been pushing every year or so is all about.<p>And, it&#x27;s been going on for longer than most people have been aware of the Internet. My first company built web caching devices for independent ISPs, back before the telcos and cable companies used their monopoly to utterly destroy the independent ISP market in the US. They used illegal and anti-competitive practices on a massive scale, but when you destroy your competitors fast enough and thoroughly enough, they won&#x27;t have the money to wage a legal battle to stop it.<p>Not that I&#x27;m bitter or anything.