Not really, no. There are still huge swaths of the US with complete garbage and no other options (e.g. with 3mbps/<1mbps being the most an ISP will ever offer). If you have more than one or two people at home (and in rural settings, bigger families are more normal), it’s practically unusable.
Of course most people have ok internet for most use cases. But there are even places in cities where the only option isn’t great. And upload speed is often still abysmal. Comcast, which had a monopoly at my previous rental within Portland, OR city limits, offered very fast download. But upload was only 6mbps with no increase available. For content creation, like uploading videos or photos, that’s a pain in the ass.
The real problem is higher speeds allow for a wider variety of use cases, which starts locking out people from bandwidth-intensive activities. Game streaming, for example, or content creation. So in a rural area, that means some careers are harder to get into just because the internet isn’t very good.
Of course most people have ok internet for most use cases. But there are even places in cities where the only option isn’t great. And upload speed is often still abysmal. Comcast, which had a monopoly at my previous rental within Portland, OR city limits, offered very fast download. But upload was only 6mbps with no increase available. For content creation, like uploading videos or photos, that’s a pain in the ass.
The real problem is higher speeds allow for a wider variety of use cases, which starts locking out people from bandwidth-intensive activities. Game streaming, for example, or content creation. So in a rural area, that means some careers are harder to get into just because the internet isn’t very good.