[phil21]

It started when vendor lock-in began, which was the late 90's/early 2000's when dial-up died and broadband took over.

Before that the phone company was the one with the poor customer service, but nothing at this level that I recall.

Dial-up days were the golden years for the ISP business. When every marginal NFL city had 30+ ISPs to choose from, and switching was simply changing a dial-in number you actually had decent competition. You had any choice you could think of - want a high quality ISP catering to highly technical users? Done. Want an uber-cheap ISP catering to the masses? Got you.

This all went away and service went greatly downhill once you had 1 or 2 options to choose from in the DSL/cable/fiber era.

[phtrivier]

So this is one of those situations were either "a single monopoly with great customer service and / or a sense of public mission" and "lots and lots of competition in a very fluid market" can be sweet spots, but anything in between is bound to fail ?