content: A major problem with capitalism is that in a field that has sufficiently large economic barriers to entry companies make far more money not competing and reaping enormous profits at the customer's expense than they do competing in a race to the bottom of profits.  And imagine what happens to somebody who does go in to try and compete? They spend billions of dollars after what would likely be years of organizing the right to dig up public and private land to lay their infrastructure. Now they're finally ready to 'flip the switch'. They announce their new 50% lower price service with 50% faster speeds. Now Comwarner drops their prices by 50% and also matches the speed. That new company that just spent billions of dollars and years of effort getting here suddenly isn't making all that much money.  This is exactly what happened to Google and exactly what they knew would happen. The reason they chose to get involved was not for profit from the endeavor itself, but because improving overall network infrastructure in the US benefits their other interests. Their expansion has been modest at best because they aren't winning this game, nobody would. I think Google's failure is part of the reason Comcast has become increasingly aggressive in screwing their customers. They know they're providing a critical service and other companies cannot realistically hope to compete against them for reasons that go far beyond just government. This is a problem with capitalism itself.