I get it, and I disagree.

See, I think the investors and funders behind Big Internet were not just pulling the profit lever - they were pulling political levers to achieve regulatory capture, to get that favorable regulatory environment they needed to make a ton of profit and regulate their competitors out of existence.

And they kept pumping funding into Big Internet while it was unprofitable because they believed eventually they'd win the political battle and have a free hand to extort profits. Which was a fair assumption given, you know, the history of regulation in general.

If the United States suddenly comes to its senses, passes good legislation, and starts enforcing its own regulations, and if we assume, in this utopia, Big Internet won't be able to buy enough American politicians to counter that, I think one of two things will happen.

One, Big Internet moves overseas to more favorable regulatory environments, provides American consumers with a substandard product, and tells them it's their own government's fault in order to encourage us to change the laws in their favor.

Or, two, Big Internet has to operate at a loss again, can't attract new funding on the promise of later profits, and goes bankrupt.

Because I don't think Big Internet can afford to give its users the same experience it did ten or fifteen years ago. In order to give us the ad-free YouTube, unrigged Google search results, algorithms that show us what we want instead of what the Republican Party wants, websites without tracking cookies, and all the other things we enjoyed, it had to run at a loss.

The old, good internet was subsidized by investors who expected profits in the future. No expectation of profit? No subsidized internet services. At least not provided by the big centralized for-profit companies that have controlled the United States' Internet experience for the last twenty years or so.