[pjc50]

> ISPs are closer to the state in most places

Depends on the structure, but a lot of them are inheritors of telcos, which were often nationalised and/or subject to state control, surveillance and censorship. I was thinking particularly of BT and its heir Openreach, which owns all the wires. While they may be privatized the oversight is a lot closer than that of SV startups.

Owning a lot of physical infrastructure and needing to dig up roads requires having a good working relationship with the authorities, at least. Whereas to be Facebook you don't even need a local presence in the country.

Or there are the various US telcos which effectively lobby for either direct monopoly grants from cities or laws against city-level broadband. This kind of thing: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-al...

[folknor]

Indeed, I've read on and off about ISPs lobbying local US government bodies for probably a decade or more.

I'm not sure what we are discussing, or if there is any point of contention between us that I can't see.

Perhaps you're not as much replying to me as simply being informative for posterity. In which case I'll thank you again, and stop writing now as to not drown out the information with drivel :-)