Comment by profmonocle

It's not like the long-haul fiber not owned by FAANG is a public utility, at least not in most places.

Traffic that goes over "the Internet" traverses some mix of your ISP's fiber, fiber belonging to some other ISP they have a deal with, then fiber belong to some ISP they have a deal with, etc.

All those ISPs are being paid to provide service, they can invest in their own networks.