[hahahacorn]

ISPs and other extremely capital intensive industries with a relatively fixed demand are always going to be warped markets. Nobody thinks they’re a spherical cow.

Despite that, the single mechanism that works so well in a competitive market, the threat of competition, (this time) worked just the same in a 2 person market where you would expect the inefficiencies of a price fixing regime and for all decisions and investments to have to pass through (and have funds allocated to) an army of lawyers, politicians and special interest groups.

That is objectively what happened and reframing it into a negative light is a choice grounded in emotion and not analysis.

Have you ever taken an economics course? Nobody finishes a basic micro/macro course without an introduction to game theory. Game theory is the EXACT reason that N=2,3,4 markets struggle with competition and provide insights into the regulation and “rules” needed for markets with very low suppler cardinality.

You thinking that anyone else expects a local ISP market to function efficiently and competitively is a failure of your own understanding, not of the system.