Yes they are. No one has unlimited capital for investment, so infrastructure companies will invest where they get the maximum returns. If they're left to their own devices cities would get increasing fast internet, and everywhere else would be left stagnant. That drives more people to live in cities, which in turn makes rural economies fail. Then the people in cities start running out of food.

Slight reductio ad absurdum argument on my part there, but it's just to illustrate the point. For a country to operate having significantly worse infrastructure in one place damages the entire economy. Infrastructure investment has to be managed carefully.

This is where something like starlink et. competitors can provide a much better cost per outcome benefit. The challenge is how to bring the cost down for the benefit of rural areas on lower incomes. As it stands right now its pretty expensive for lower-mid income demographic to swallow price wise.

Opportunity cost. Why spend your installation technician's time in an unprofitable rural region when you can better-spend their time in a profitable city?

Put another way, how does banning improvements in New York suddenly make improvements in Montana more profitable?

If your argument were true this map would look much different: https://www.fcc.gov/health/maps

Local politicians all work just about the same way when it comes to approving an internet provider. Attracting them generally has to do with business incentives, which means if the State and/or Federal government do nothing then you'll get what you have today.

I can get 100 urban users up for 1/4 of the price to get 20 users in a rural sub-division. This isn't just capitalism, it's basic utilitarianism.