I live in rural NC so right now I have either spectrum, which I hate because spectrum, 3Mbps DSL, or Starlink. I want fiber so bad I can taste it. I’d kill for a fiber co-op in my neighborhood… seriously.. who you want offed?
this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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The fcc can fuck all the way off unless they start funding local isp co-ops. They completely missed the mark in providing high speed internet. It’s only disrupters that gave us anything.
We had dial up bullshit until broadband showed up. We had slow broadband until google started putting fiber down, and we had pathetic rural options until starlink.
So yes, don’t look at starlink as the reason they raised prices on their customers. Look at how badly US internet has been managed and regulated and fix your own shit first.
as someone from a 3rd world country, I was surprised to know a big part of the US was still relying on dial up in the 2020s.
Also, monthly quotas for home internet is abusive as fuck. Especially in times of video streaming.
There are plans of 1Gbps and 1.2TB of quota, so users may accidentally run out of internet for the whole month in 3 hours and, conveniently, need to pay them more.
The FCC has allowed telecoms to fleece the tax payers since their inception. They never really get broken up. They never fulfill their subsidy obligations. You are almost guaranteed to be in a monopoly via geography because the illusion of choice is just some bullshit coverage map.
Yeah, I don't even get the illusion of choice. At my address there's only one provider offering broadband speeds and I'm not even in a remote area at all.
It’s all about lack of consumer protection in the us, the triumph of marketing over honesty. It’s not just an opportunity to skim more profit but to sell more with the claim your service is better than it is
That said, fuck the "disruptors" who first "disrupted" the market (not just fuelled by a "genius" idea, but also the deep pockets of VC), abusing their monopolies to buy off or quash any budding competition, squeeze every last penny out of their ~~victims~~ customers and continuously enshittify their services for both individuals and businesses.
I don’t agree with this.
Apple disrupted mobile phones for the better.
Cable modems disrupted dial ups.
Residential Solar is disrupting power generation companies.
Starlink disrupted Hughesnet and overpriced rural terrestrial wireless.
One could argue Apple’s disruption in the mobile device sector was not for the greater good.
Yes but so? Isn’t this Starlink telling fcc to give up and just send them all the money? That fcc commissioners is saying that’s stupid, we need to keep trying?
I fully agreed they have completely screwed up broadband rollout while spending $100B of our money. But that doesn’t mean an Elon monopoly is a better choice. Let Starlink compete as one of the choices but make sure there are choices
No it’s Starlink saying the fcc doesn’t need to hand out any more funds.
This would be a different story if Musk and Trump were still enthusiastically smooching each other's bottoms.
It's the Democratic commissioner that expressed the concerns in the headline.