re: Let’s get this clear once and for all: the internet is NOT a utility

quote:

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Yup

Which is why it made me laugh.

You are trying to conflate the existence of competition(which there is) with "perfect competition".

Nice attempt at slight of hand.

I guess you thought I'd miss it.

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We are going to keep going until you answer:

In the vast majority of markets there are not any perfect substitutes to your regional ISP/cable company. For many, if you want definition high speed broadband there is only one game in town. On top of that, the industry enjoys enormous amounts of regulatory capture at the state, local, and as of this year, the federal level. The barriers to entry are incredibly high. Often the necessary infrastructure costs to be a true competitor will run you into the 100's of millions of dollars on top of expensive ongoing operating expenses. That to break even requires a large marketshare, which often is not economically viable in smaller communities. The infrastructure being built requires use of shared resources and creates issues of redundancy, a highly inefficient use of scarce resources. The imperfect substitutes that exist, like cell phones(just hope Verizon doesn't try and block you from tethering again), satellite internet, or DSL are often not available to all households and when they are are not adequate substitutes. Where they cost was more for speed and data, often having hard caps that will get hit after only a short period of heavy use. So they do not provide any sort of mechanism that truly would turn the market leader into a price taker or shift their behavior. It is also a market space that often is propped up by taxpayers, through direct investment and subsidization, which alone categorically differentiates it from other goods and services.

All coming in the larger context of the increasingly vital function the internet serves its citizenry. From leisure activity, to job seeking and performance, to education, often from elementary school up through college. The internet is a vital human resource that has only grown in its necessity for American life. It is therefore more than reasonable that like electricity, water, sanitation, and gas, that the resource be treated accordingly.

Back to the market dynamics discussion, when you look at that total industry context, the economic term that best defines this sort of market in most places is best categorized as a:

natural monopoly. is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors.

Which is exactly what we see in the vast majority of markets for current high speed land access internet. Some larger cities have been able to maintain one or two additional direct substitutes, but often the market is still not truly competitive and falls more in line with oligopoly traits. For a majority of the citizenry though they live with a defacto natural monopoly arrangement for an increasingly inelastic good.