In the neighborhood where I live, there are exactly two choices: Comcast or AT&T. Every time I think I have a grip of which one is more evil, I am proven wrong.

(Starlink is not an option, for a huge number of reasons that I won't get in to here. T-Mobile has an attractive-looking wireless 5G package for home Internet, but hide the fact that you're getting third-world service via CGNAT, which means it is really only useful for content consumption.)

Interesting as this talking about performance degradation and payments from netflix to comcast in Dec 2013-Jan 2014. Nextflix happened to raise prices of their service a few months later in Apr 2014...

Exactly. When Netflix pays extortion to ISPs that money comes from your pocket, not Netflix's profits.

And when Netflix stops paying money to ISPs, the ISPs will get that money from... your pocket.

All of this is fungible and companies compete for the marginal dollar of revenue. Despite the wishcasting of central planners, there's no magic way to manifest money out of the pockets of one class of corporations without the system shifting to a new equilibrium.

The issue is that now smaller ISPs or honest ISPs have to raise their advertised prices compared to Comcast.

It's a self-contained lesson in corporation taxation, I suppose.

Tell PA to stop granting them a local monopoly in my area then. I'll gladly switch when I have an alternative that works. I have nothing here in rural western PA except comcast and they have just been jacking the cost up year after year and sucking more and more.