It is simply tragic that we live in the country that invented the Internet, and yet the bandwidth available to the average citizen is very low compared to the r

It is simply tragic that we live in the country that invented the Internet, and yet the bandwidth available to the average citizen is very low compared to the rest of the first world countries. To some extent that is a result of the fact that we had it early. A lot of money was put into the early infrastructure, and it now needs to be upgraded, but there's little incentive to do so as long as it's working well enough. Whereas latecomers to the party can get equipment three generations better than what we started with, and install it for a lot less money than we had to sink into our old stuff. This is not too uncommon in business, either, where (especially in fields where patents don't ensure a monopoly for the innovator), the innovator spends a lot of resources in development, setting up the supply chain, and driving consumer demand. The "me, too!" business then comes along and benefits from all of this without having to pay a dime, and can skip right past many unprofitable months and challenge the innovator to a game of catch-up very quickly.