It might be easier to convince me ISPs were a natural monopoly if they weren't also a legally protected monopoly where they are, and generally have plenty of competition where they aren't.
I’m not sure that’s evidence against their natural monopoly position. It might be that we’re in a world where in some places, it’s plausible to have two ISPs, and in many it’s not—but if two try, they’ll both fail to get enough people to be profitable. Then any sane provider wants to demand exclusivity as the cost of pulling fiber through a community, and unhappily acknowledges that they’ll have to cover all of their exclusive territory. If we’re in that world, and the service is nearly essential, we’ll see legal monopolies in lots of places, and some places with no legal monopoly and no service—they can’t agree on a price.
I’m prone to suspicion of their business practices too, but every one of the Comcast technical staff I’ve met, from Jason down, has been an excellent person deeply committed to the best mission of a telecoms company, enabling human communication. Is that a marketing campaign? Yes, but as far as I can tell it’s an honest campaign of showing the world who they are and what they care about.
Do you personally have the ability to create large-scale broadband networks, using only the financial means available to the average citizen? An estimate by Goldman Sachs put the cost of nationwide Google Fiber at $140 billion. Personally, I'm not sure if I could come up with that kind of money, in a pinch.
