Google tried to break regional US monopolies with Google Fiber, which to my surprise is still going despite Google’s best efforts to kill off projects that aren’t immediately successful and is active in 19 US states or around 40 different cities.
The only way I can see this catastrophe ending is one of three ways:
Satellite internet - Elon Musk would need to massively drop the price of Starlink to encourage others to switch, or a competitor would need to pop up and offer similar service at a lower price point, likely through Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic.
The US collectively vote the Republicans out of office by a landslide and bring in a left-wing Democrat leader. Won’t happen for so many reasons.
Mesh networks. Something like Freifunk but on a much bigger scale.
Google Fiber is massively expanding in my state. They blew through my neighborhood in about a week getting the lines installed at the street. Then a month or so later were setting up the per house installs. I’ve only had it a few months now.
I got this email on March 26th though. Once their expansion slows and the number of new subscribers starts to taper off I expect the full enshitification process to begin.
Google tried to break regional US monopolies with Google Fiber, which to my surprise is still going despite Google’s best efforts to kill off projects that aren’t immediately successful and is active in 19 US states or around 40 different cities.
The only way I can see this catastrophe ending is one of three ways:
Not only is Google Fiber still going, it actually has begun expanding service again after being stuck in limbo for a while.
It’s a strange one, to be sure, but I guess they see a benefit to the infrastructure they built.
Google Fiber unfortunately got sold to a private equity company and merged with Astound.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/google-fiber-will-be-sold-to-private-equity-firm-and-merge-with-cable-company/
Google Fiber is massively expanding in my state. They blew through my neighborhood in about a week getting the lines installed at the street. Then a month or so later were setting up the per house installs. I’ve only had it a few months now.
I got this email on March 26th though. Once their expansion slows and the number of new subscribers starts to taper off I expect the full enshitification process to begin.
Interesting. So ultimately Google is divesting itself of the responsibility and cost of the network.
Given that the pricing is already pretty high compared to what it used to be, I won’t be surprised if it begins to creep up again in due time.