Monopolies
Cable System ISP's in the US are essentially unregulated monopolies in the areas they "service." Read: Cable TV monopolies. Over 70% of Americans have -one- choice for high-speed internet service: Their local cable monopoly. AT&T is almost entirely DSL, Satellites will never have the capacity or speed, Fiber footprint from any player (Google, Verizon, AT&T is tiny--and will be for at least a decade.)
IMHO, the cable monopolies have no business laying any more new, proprietary services on top of their cable monopoly, it's not fair, and it is not good business. Erecting artificial barriers, and barricading new, innovative, faster, more advanced, more competitive offerings by either the monopolies themselves, or by "legislators and regulators" is just stupid. Plus, it tends to concentrate new business start ups, in totally unrelated fields, to re-locate, if at all possible, to get faster, cheaper internet service in one of the few competitive areas. There is evidence this is already happening here.
The cable monopolies were granted their franchise gravy train monopolies in return for digging the trenches and laying the cable to deliver TV channels--not for providing internet service, selling local advertising, owning TV networks, owning movie studios, owning sports networks, providing security or cloud services on top of their monopolies. Again, it's not fair and it's not good business. You can make an excellent case that the total pool of profits and investment returns to the financial community would be substantially higher, consumer and business prices would be lower and the rate an pace of technology advance would be higher, if the systems were broken back up into trenches and cable, and -every- other value-add service, content company, and the rest were separate and competing entities. More competition, better offerings, lower prices, faster improvements in technology. Better, faster, quicker.
We need to wake up in America and get on the ball. We're being screwed by a corrupt, ignorant, incompetent system for decades. What do you think?