Line gets fuzzy when ISPs, in most part, are government-backed monopolies (I'm "lucky" because both Verion and Comcast covers my area)

He is against them being government backed monopolies. According to him, and I agree, we should be able to switch ISP's at will. If we do not want an ISP selling our data we should have the freedom to move to one that doesn't.

This sounds great for N >> 1 ISPs. But most of us have N > 1 (and N <= 2) from which to choose.

You have that freedom now, you might just have to move to exercise it.

So in my mind there are two parts to publicly funded projects. One is whether the spending of funds is worth it and another is whether the people have a choice.

We think that by definition that when private companies have programs, they're not spending public money but I'd argue (somewhat controversial I agree) that any tax break is public money. Also the second part of whether participation is mandatory. I'd say if an ISP has a de facto Monopoly in a market, then we could say participation is mandatory. I hope this part is less controversial.