Definitely the bar to become ISP is too high, lower it and the problem will be gone. I don't belive that people don't want to become ISP just like that - something is wrong here.
On the other hand I have to say that sane regulations make sense, for instance mobile operators in Poland who own hardware infrastructure are obliged by law to sell bandwith to virtual operators when requested. That indeed lowered prices and provided better serivces including mobile internet. However, to have a full picture, I need to say that at the down of mobile telephony in Poland, initial investment and infrastructure was build by companies owned or controlled by the state, so, to some extent, infrastructure was payed from public money and later sold to 100% private entities.
The real reason we have few ISPs is that building facilities require large amounts of capital, returns are low and the incumbents have already built out the profitable markets.
Regulation is not the root of the problem. Sure, lessening the burden would help, but not solve the problem.
Documented abuses of net neutrality were few and far between and there really wasn't a precedent for the 2010 Act in the first place. Mobile phone carriers are not subject to the same net neutrality rules, yet I haven't heard of any of the 4 major providers deliberately throttling internet service.
That's Libertarianism. Everything done by government is bad, everything done by businesses is good. Looking at the actual effects is verboten.
But it's kinda weird to see you use 'verboten' - probably to make this sound "really bad",in some sort of authoritarian way - in a reply to a post that contains the words "as a German". That seems inappropriate.
The common counter argument seems to be that "Regulation is bad for the open market" and that "Better options would come up if an ISP starts doing weird shit, if the market demands it".
It's interesting to me that the very same people seem to be pro Freedom of Press/Freedom of Speech (as a German, the US Freedom of Speech is something I'm not used to, something that doesn't align with my culture/upbringing), but feel different about this subject because it involves a "market"?