Agreed. However, having gone down that rabbit hole too often, the arguments devolve. One particularly puzzling exchange devolved from my position of "Japan and Korea has ultra high speed Internet, why doesn't the US?" to "population density" on the other side, then to this same argument about Sweden's density, then to "cultural homogeneity" on the other.

That made me pause. "Cultural homogeneity?" I asked. And, the debate devolved into how there are too many minorities in the US and because of that, no one in any position of power wanted to allow everyone universal access because minorities (which I assumed to be Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, etc.) would need too many handouts to get the same speed, which no one would want to pay for. But if it were all-white like Sweden or all-Japanese, etc. it would be fine because it's "for the good of the people".

I just kinda tuned out after that argument. That debate did make strike a nerve, though. I wonder how much "cultural heterogeneity" actually _does_ come into play rather than the tired "population density" argument.

Sweden and Finland are only sparsely populated on paper. Nearly 75% of Sweden lives along the coast, compared to only 40% of the U.S. 18% of Swedes live in the country's four largest cities, versus only 5% of Americans.

You can't compare an urban city with a whole country. Japan's landmass includes farm land, mountains and shit.

Washington, DC isn't very dense for the core of a city. There aren't any high rises. Most of the city is single family homes and 3 story walk up apartments.

I live in Arlington, VA which used to be part of DC. I get Verizon Fios. I get 75/75 and cable tv for 80 a month. It's not the dark ages.

I can't think of any place that I've lived in the US which has consistently worse broadband performance than DC and Northern Virginia. This is especially sad given Northern Virginia's density of large tech companies and history as 'internet alley'[1].

[1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/internet-alley