I guess in my mind there is little difference between "the government", at least at a city level, and a group of people cooperating for their own good.
Your example is a strawman argument, as there is no evidence that government is less efficient than a private enterprise. (The example that comes to mind is Medicare, which as far as I understand it has lower administrative costs than most private plans.) That's not the point of the lawsuit, in any case.
I agree there is a difference between the government providing a service as a nonprofit, self-financing corporation and using taxes to finance a service. But you can't just argue that the market has been "defacto-socialized" without saying why that would be bad.
There are many instances where people who don't use it are paying for it. Roads, for example. A "fair" system would be to have every inch of roadway be toll road, where the toll would be in proportion to the amount of space used and wear inflicted on the roadway. Pedestrians would pay next to nothing, bikes slightly more, then motorcycles, cars and finally SUVs and trucks. Every lane on the freeway should be toll, with an increasing toll for the lower-numbered lanes in case you want to go "faster". Such a system would be ridiculously inefficient and cumbersome, so I'm fine paying my share of the roads even if I use them less than average, because roads are an essential infrastructure.
In the same vein, a city should be able to decide that a fiber network is an essential infrastructure that should be provided to all inhabitants and that shrinking the digital divide is important enough that low-income people should have subsidized access. And no corporation should be able to argue that this is "illegal".
Private corporations are allowed to exist to serve the needs of the people, not the other way around.
Your example is a strawman argument, as there is no evidence that government is less efficient than a private enterprise. (The example that comes to mind is Medicare, which as far as I understand it has lower administrative costs than most private plans.) That's not the point of the lawsuit, in any case.
I agree there is a difference between the government providing a service as a nonprofit, self-financing corporation and using taxes to finance a service. But you can't just argue that the market has been "defacto-socialized" without saying why that would be bad.
There are many instances where people who don't use it are paying for it. Roads, for example. A "fair" system would be to have every inch of roadway be toll road, where the toll would be in proportion to the amount of space used and wear inflicted on the roadway. Pedestrians would pay next to nothing, bikes slightly more, then motorcycles, cars and finally SUVs and trucks. Every lane on the freeway should be toll, with an increasing toll for the lower-numbered lanes in case you want to go "faster". Such a system would be ridiculously inefficient and cumbersome, so I'm fine paying my share of the roads even if I use them less than average, because roads are an essential infrastructure.
In the same vein, a city should be able to decide that a fiber network is an essential infrastructure that should be provided to all inhabitants and that shrinking the digital divide is important enough that low-income people should have subsidized access. And no corporation should be able to argue that this is "illegal".
Private corporations are allowed to exist to serve the needs of the people, not the other way around.