[greglindahl]

I live in a big apartment building in downtown Palo Alto, and I have the choice of cable company (fast) or phone company (slow). The % of Americans who have more choices is quite tiny... you're extremely lucky if you have even 2 fast choices!

That said, it would be awesome if Seattle did have enough competition to have a completely different market from elsewhere in the US: imagine the cable company trying to explain why they have wildly different offerings in places with and without competition.

[existencebox]

That is, literally, the current situation. I moved from Baltimore to Seattle. I paid for Comcast for a time in both locations (in Baltimore it was the ONLY option, in Seattle you usually have 1-1.5 other options)

At least the year I moved, I went from 69$ for ~55 down 5 up to 50$ for something like 100 down 10 up. (Yes it was the "promotion rate" but I played that game on both sides.) Over the years Comcast played the same "Ratchet up the rates" game, and eventually I got a house specifically with the mindset to 'not have comcast' and moved to an area with I believe 3 broadband choices. I now pay 50$ for I believe ~400 down (was originally 250 but they've been sneakily upgrading their system, wave is fucking amazing). On top of that service reliability is MUCH better, support is _fantastic_ and I have much less concern that my ISP is doing something scummy.

Monoplistic local practices taking away any incentive for consumer friendly offerings is not a hypothetical, it is the reality for large swaths of america.