…And I get $100/month no matter who or what I choose.

such as it is… i get a choice between an overpriced service and out-and-out price gouging,

You live in a market large enough for competition, Hipparchia, whereas I am part of a captive audience.

I finally had to order a modem over the ‘Net, because none of the local businesses had anything that would work with the local DSL system. It’s incredible – there are only two choices in this area and they don’t carry equipment for works with one of them.

then along came at&t, who kept erroneously billing me $100+/month for ‘package deals’ i never asked for AND they had crappy tech support. bunch of crooks.

i now have cable phone+internet for ~$65/month, with excellent – nay, primo – customer service and tech support. not quite as good as the deal from bellsouth but lightyears ahead of at&t, so competition is still working here, to some extent.

of course, i read that other countries have truly FAST internet for about half what i pay for my “moderately fast” internet, so the benefits of “competition” would appear to be that i can afford the almost-best of the mediocre.