But what rural worker wants to leave their children to unfair advantage? These things have value beyond economics, they are required to maintain population and workers of absolutely essential jobs.
(Otherwise, these areas further depopulate, and you have to provide other incentives to get people to do said work.)
What I will agree with, is that while it could be wrapped into an economic decision, if so, then "making sure there are hospitals there", or police, or schools is also an economic decision.
Which pretty much means that with such reasoning, all centralized planning is. Many economists might disagree.
The cost and reward functions in a complex society are much more complicated than you seem to allude. Some things we’ve decided as a society are public goods and deserve to be uncoupled from those market forces because they are important enough to ensure everyone have relatively equal access.
shouldn't every square inch of Alaska be electrified, internetted, and cellphone towered? that way, just in case I consider whether to live there, I won't have to think about the inconvenience of it, it will make my decision easier.
i.e. spending money on expensive infrastructure to service small numbers of customers is not necessarily a brilliant idea. Who knows, it may not have even paid itself back for all remote communities within the lower 48; many rural communities are even smaller now then there were then.
That doesn't mean there weren't net benefits from the rural electrification act, but you are wrong to pitch it as "evil corporate barons vs everybody else". How about all of us together decide what we can afford? Would you accept your kid's argument that you pay to electrify (to code, mind you, and union electricians) your kid's treehouse in the backyard just because he accuses you of being a greedy tyrant if you don't?