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Comment by christina97

1 month ago

My apartment, smack bang in the middle of Manhattan, has a single coax cable opened by Spectrum, and is the only option for me to get reliable internet connection. I have no choice but to (1) sign whatever their ToS are, (2) pay whatever they want to charge, and (3) have them do what they want with my metadata. I’ve decided it’s not the hill I want to die on, but no, I don’t have many ISPs to choose from.

You have at very least: * Mobile connection, a few carriers * Starlink/Eutelsat

It's not perfect, but nowhere near Google/Apple duopoly. Also this is very local US issue, solvable on city level regulation, while smartphones are everywhere.

  • You also have the option to move. I mean, that's not ideal, obviously you don't want to have people up and change addresses to deal with a problem with a single company, but if you end up on both Google and Apple's shitlists, there's nowhere you can go to where Schmapple is a third option.

Doesn’t Manhattan have radio based ISPs like 5G providers? Perhaps not ideal but far from a single ISP provider.