But the initial outlay of Fiber won't be recouped in a short period of time regardless, and a government backed coop will have that paid via tax dollars regardless... If they're laying fiber via taxes, they're laying fiber, that is a fixed expense. And frankly as part of what I consider as essential infrastructure (communications), I'm mostly okay with that expense being from tax funding at a local level.

So, the coop actually has a pretty unfair advantage, but as long as it's local communities, I'm mostly okay with it. And as to local communities, larger cities are more disconnected than smaller towns. So there's some difference there. The coop doesn't have to be setup to recover initial outlay... it depends on the structure and how it's setup with the local municipality. As to the incumbents, they were also largely funded via tax dollars for initial outlay, and instead of planning for reinvestment/growth, they've chosen not to do so, and deserve to see upstarts encroaching on them.