> To me that seems like a strange argument against a municipal service. Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaini

> To me that seems like a strange argument against a municipal service. Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? A service that charges money and is meant to compete with private companies should do so on even grounds lest it just becomes a de-facto government monopoly. That's fine if that's the goal but, in that case, it shouldn't be charging money at all and should just be providing the service by default. Operating at a middle ground where it's subsidized by government funding but isn't providing service to everyone but is available to everyone isn't a logical place to be. The reason why the argument against municipal service's financial sustainability makes sense is because it's often sold to and voted on by the population it serves as being solvent. There are three situations that make sense to me for municipal broadband. 1. Charge a fee and operate without government funding, similar to a non-profit but government run. Probably with an exception for expanding the network to cover the entire municipality but, once that's complete, maintenance should be sustained by the program. Essentially, providing at-cost broadband and subsidizing accessibility. 2. Broadband-for-all. Government provides broadband as a service, provided free of charge to the end user and funded by taxpayers. 3. In lieu of some kind of broadband subsidy gated to a limited population (low-income, most likely). Broadband-for-all... if you're poor. Municipal broadband is usually proposed as and passed by voters as #1. The requirement for it to be self sustaining is to allow for competition in the market to still exist. After all, the problem we are trying to solve is created by the monopoly (duopoly if you consider DSL competitive to cable or have access to fiber) so replacing one monopoly with another is not seen as progress by many. #1 gets support from the broadest constituency because different groups like it for different reasons. #2 is not usually broadly supported enough to be voted in and #3 doesn't solve the problem that #1 and #2 aim to. > Surely no one expects other things like road maintenance to be financially self-sustaining? Because nobody every voted for road maintenance to be self-sustaining. People usually are voting for tax increases that are meant to pay for roads.