There are vast parts of California that are pretty much empty. However, the lack of competition in broadband at the consumer level does suck.

I mean, same goes for France, tho.

california is ~160,000mi^2 and france is ~244,000mi^2 (423 megameters squared, 632 megameters squared, metric), the population density, respectively, is 251/mi^2 and 281/mi^2. You're comparing an entire country to a single state (2% of the US states, in fact.)

I like to point stuff like this out whenever someone compares an entire EU country to some US state.

note: i edited the france density, as i did accidentally transcribe the wrong value. France is slightly denser per sqkm.

Are you sure about your numbers?

It seems like you're mixing density units.

France has 66M people for 547k km^2, which is 122/km^2 , California has 39M for 403k km^2, which is 97/km^2.

That particular US state has a GDP larger than that entire EU country.

well, 400 billion less (USD, i think), but like 2/3rds the population. California $4.1trillion 39mm pop; france $4.5trillion 66mm/68mm pop.

What goes for France?

I have a 5gbit down, 900mbit up connection with 200 tv channels a d a landline for 30€ over fiber. And I'm not even in a big city

In the US I had spectrum at 80$ a month for just internet at like 20mbit down or something...

The reason we can't have whatever nice things you want is because California doesn't want to spend the money on that nice thing, and it has to maintain a budget, unlike nations. Including a $40 Billion project on a budget makes many, many other things go away. Even if it's just temporarily to help pay for the construction of the service, the point stands.

So imagine if France couldn't go into debt - only the EU can. France wants a giga-train suddenly, so they ask for it. The current leader of the EU isn't a fan of more trains, so he turns it down. France goes back to its people and says "we can build the giga-train if we do XYZ", and people vote based on whether or not they want XYZ or the giga-train more.

I think it's possible you just might want things different from what others want. That study a while back which showed most Americans want cheap public transit so that everyone else gets off the road and gives them more space lives rent free in my head. Nobody wants these stupid trains.

I mean, yeah, the US having systemic problems which make capital investment difficult, or at least extremely slow, is _part_ of it, but there's also just a tendency to a complacent "we have these problems because we are _special_ and they can't be fixed" attitude amongst many Americans (I say this as an outside observer).