[em-bee]

i think most people had the option to choose among two, or maybe if they were lucky three ISPs. only big cities had more, and the better alternative ISPs tended to be more expensive too. and since they were not exactly telling you in advance that they were going to do this and they often were locking you into one or two year minimum contracts, switching ISPs was and still is not a simple thing to do.

[chgs]

How odd. I have a choice of dozens in the uk. If I remember back in the day you pups chose a subsidised isp (or even free) which worked by adding adverts into you web browsing. Some people were happy with that.

Personally I pay more so that I have support via IRC, have an unfiltered view of the internet, have static IPs, no over subscribing bandwidth. not everyone cares about that so are happy to pay less to get less

Why is there so little choice in your area?