1) It matters not because of punishment but because how how unlikely new people are able to enter this market. 2) this park of facebook's market (sharing photo

1) It matters not because of punishment but because how how unlikely new people are able to enter this market. 2) this park of facebook's market (sharing photos with relatives) is extremely easy to enter. Before Facebook there was Flickr, MySpace, etc. Now you can send pictures to your family using Dropbox, google plus, google drive, and practically any messaging app ever made, including Snapchat off the top of my head here. If you don't like one thing about Facebook you can just send a link to another service (from Facebook even, if that is your only mode of communication). 3) I think we are in violent agreement about there needing to be more regulations around our privacy all around. But the difference is real and material between pointing your browser at a different URL and essentially moving counties or states to some place where you have an option #2. As for your footnote, i'm pretty sure it's not incorrect, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_States#/editor/11 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_the_United_State... And for regulations prohibiting more, the first article I found: https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-ju... But also this is the case locally where I live where there is a well liked County ISP battling hard against Comcast to be able to get more easements for more lines. And this is near Silicon Valley where there is a local ISP run by (the right kind of) crazy people. Drive a few miles and you'll be right back in monopoly territory.