They were only decent because the bar was on the floor. As soon as Google Fiber entered a city, entrenched ISPs slashed their prices, improved customer service, and made things better for everyone.

There was a post on Reddit back in the day of a guy who quit his day job to bring fiber to people at roughly half the price of the local ISP and still made enough money to live comfortably.

From what I remember, it's actually fairly straightforward to start an ISP but just takes someone with the time to do it. Between the grants and small business loans, you effectively can get started with very little risk. It's just that very few people actually do it.

I feel very lucky that my county has public fiber.

I can only imagine.

This is America being America.

In almost every other country in the world, the utilities are built and regulated by the state (or in the UK built by a business to be owned and regulated by the state).

In America your ISP has way more freedom than an ISP in the UK. Freedom to screw over consumers.

I'm not surprised a progressive ISP like Google Fiber failed in "land of the free" capitalist dystopian USA.