55% of Americans watched Netflix in the last year. http://www.businessinsider.com/percent-of-americans-who-watc...
98% of Americans think internet speeds need to be improved. https://tech.co/americans-internet-speeds-improving-2017-06
Roughly 50% are 'satisfied' with their home internet speeds but this is according to the FCC, which has lied to me a lot recently. https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-298516A1.p...
[2015] Satisfaction with cable tv and internet falls to 7-year low, making them the worst industries. http://www.businessinsider.com/satisfaction-with-cable-and-i...
These are just the top links in the search results, not cherry picked at all. You seem to be extrapolating from your experience with ISP choice. I've lived in supposedly very high-tech American cities with only one choice of ISP over 2Mbps. Compare US prices and service to places like Scandanavia. What's the difference? Over here ISPs can extract a much larger fraction of value while providing smaller total value (worse service). This is a natural result of lightly-regulated monopolies and oligopolies. It doesn't mean that their choices not to invest are somehow best for the long-term growth of the internet, in any way shape or form. Their monetary incentives are not aligned with long-term growth of the Internet.
Put another way, about five of every six Americans doesn't subscribe to Netflix.
> 55% of Americans watched Netflix in the last year.
That article is based on a "study" whose source is an online survey (surveymonkey) with 1046 respondents.
> 98% of Americans think internet speeds need to be improved.
Blogspam article which cites, though does not link, to an alleged study from Cambium Networks. Cambium Networks sells WISP equipment.
> Roughly 50% are 'satisfied' with their home internet speeds but this is according to the FCC, which has lied to me a lot recently.
Wow, that's a serious misrepresentation. It says that 50% are "very satisfied" with their internet speeds, but you conveniently left out the line that follows: an additional 41% are "somewhat satisfied" with their internet speeds. So it's really saying that 91% are 'satisfied' with their home internet speeds.
The broader point you can take from that document is that, between two different studies, only 20% of homes had respondents who were aware of their network speed... It's not a tremendous leap to assume that most people are not savvy enough to understand whether their network issues are caused by their ISP, or whether their network issues are caused by an old and flakey combo-WAP-router-modem that lacks modern developments in things like traffic shaping. A lot of hatred for ISPs probably comes from misinformed consumers cursing their ISP for network slowness that is actually due to wireless congestion or old/slow computers running a virus scan.
> This is a natural result of lightly-regulated monopolies and oligopolies. It doesn't mean that their choices not to invest are somehow best for the long-term growth of the internet, in any way shape or form. Their monetary incentives are not aligned with long-term growth of the Internet.
My argument is that there is no real monopoly, the average internet user has a lot of choices that meets the needs of their usage patterns-- usage patterns that seem completely alien to HN readers and reddit users.
You seem to be saying that we should be thrilled with this wonderful world where lots of people are "somewhat" satisfied and pay much higher prices than other countries and get 1Mbps level service. That's the status quo you want to hang on to? Is that where you want America to still be in 20 years?
If we never serve people a better internet, there will be tons of opportunities they'll never get. As just one example, right now there is a huge crunch of millenials moving to big cities where the jobs are at, but that's also where housing prices are highest. If only we had the Internet service to allow large numbers of good paying jobs from home in rural areas, it would be huge for our country's economy. But I worry that the attitude you present, that most people don't need good internet anyway, will never get us there.
They might not for the majority of the time, but they certainly do use the internet like you and I do.
Were this not the case, "googling" would not have become such a common word.
Things like streaming media, file sharing, big game downloads, etc. are what's contributing meaningfully to filling up pipes and making it necessary to improve the links. And my point is that HN readers are far more likely to take part in these usage patterns, and underestimate how many Americans have zero interest in using the internet that way. They think that because their usage patterns could not be met by a cellular or satellite internet plan that it means that it wouldn't fit the needs of most everyone else, either. It's just not true.
It is what google leads to that matters. Google is the main way that laypeople find alternatives to Netflix, etc.
> HN readers are far more likely to take part in these usage patterns
One group being "more likely" does not make the other group "less likely".
File sharing, game downloads, etc. are still areas that are not very centralized, and that is why average people do care about net neutrality, whether or not they understand that to be the case.
Don't overestimate how many Americans "have zero interest in using the internet that way".
> They think that because their usage patterns could be met by a cellular or satellite internet plan that it means that would fit the needs of most everyone else, too.
Sure, there are a lot of people in that situation, here on HN, and elsewhere.
When file sharing sites, youtube, steam, etc. were new, they showed the limitations most people had with bandwidth, etc. It wasn't until later that most people found themselves with more bandwidth than they needed.
I think it's important that we reverse that order. I believe that if most people have significantly more bandwidth, that new services that use it will appear that wouldn't be possible with the bandwidth currently available to most people.
It's difficult, with many people, to convince them that should be the case, and ISPs seem to be working hard to convince people that providing more bandwidth is unfeasible. I don't believe that.
Consider that it's estimated that 13% of Americans don't use the internet-- at all, for anything, ever.[1] Think about how many people probably exclusively use their $60/mo cable internet to use Facebook, read news websites, and send emails. They don't use Netflix, they don't watch YouTube, they only do what they know and they're happy with it. Is it accurate to say that someone with these needs has no choice in their ISP?
Where I am right now, in the middle of central Wisconsin surrounded by acres of farm fields in every direction, I have fiber all the way to my house. In addition, there is reliable LTE coverage on multiple carriers. There's also satellite internet. For the average internet user as of 2017, I really think it's inaccurate to imply that consumers lack choice.
What you're really saying is that there's no competition in the very high end segment of consumer ISPs. And I'd agree with that, there is little choice when it comes to a provider that is willing to offer you a highspeed DOCSIS plan without a data cap, or fiber internet, etc. Most homes probably only have one provider that meets the needs of power users.
And to that I say, "tough shit!" If you're an outlier as a consumer, you're going to pay through the nose for it and you're not going to have a ton of choice. It's not some giant conspiracy to milk consumers dry, it's a matter of business. ISPs don't want to invest billions into infrastructure that some trivial portion of their consumer market really would utilize. It would be fiscally irresponsible to spend all that money for such little return. If posing it that way doesn't appeal you, let me put it another way: it would be bad for the long term growth of the internet to spend all that money to appease a small portion of internet users. That money is better saved and spent later.
You might say, "Consumers will certainly desire faster internet as years pass, so it's an investment they'll have to make eventually, and the taxpayer has subsidized this expansion, so they should be doing it now, anyway."
I believe you'd be wrong to say that. ISPs shouldn't be obligated to be spending money now if they're meeting the majority of needs of their customers. I know online it maybe doesn't seem that way with all the "Comcast-are-Nazis memes", but it's just a matter of overlap between poweruser segment with high bandwidth requirements also being active on the social media you frequent. Elsewhere on the internet, there's a majority of casual internet users who are not coming close to being meaningfully impacted by technical limitations of their connection.
If you're interested in stable growth of the internet as time goes on, you should root for them to save their money now so they can spend it later when demand from the average consumer catches up. Doing anything else would mean spending a lot of money on infrastructure that sits unused, that is antiquated by the time people want it. Think of China and their crumbling empty cities, let's not make the same sort of mistake with internet infrastructure.
[1]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/07/some-america...