[ApolloFortyNine]

>Yet, the private sector focuses mostly on the software part, or services. I have rarely seen a start up on improving optical fiber or electronic chips. The public sector builds the infrastructure, often following decades of investment and work. People working on infrastructure either work for the government for pennies or, if they haven’t yet lost their jobs to outsourcing to developing countries, have difficulty finding employment.

Citation desperately needed. How you got "the government pays for our internet infrastructure" out of an article about Google paying for a new Subsea cable, I do not know.

I implore you to do a tracert right now to hackernews, and lookup who operates the ips of every router it hits in between. Chances are incredibly good not a single hop is on a government network. (true for the U.S at least)