Well, theres things to account for, at least in australia's case. Proximity to servers that australians interact with, etc. In my experience as a gaming community admin of 13 years, their ping was always an issue because of that. I didn't talk to them about general ISP issues outside that though.

So, in our search for confirmation in our unhappiness with the non-compete nature of US ISP's, one avenue is getting experiences of those we deem as role models for how ISP's should function. I sometimes fall victim to giving more weight to anecdotes that support my opinion that we could receive better service.

Counter opinions from canadian/australian on their ISP experience has it's own issues on whether or not we can or should draw conclusions. Certainly, it doesn't mean we are out of bounds for our (US) issues with the current system we're working with right?

That's not to say they could not still be role models. Some of the best lessons I learned were from watching my parents fuck up. I think that correlates here in that we know there's a problem because we've had to deal with it enough. So much so that we've made enough comparisons and exchanged information with our european cousins (those socialist dogs, amiright Murica?) to draw some conclusions.

I think at the very least most of US has functional internet but typically when economies like these scale up the service improves and becomes more affordable--think difference in pricing of a 40in big screen TV in 2008 vs now (hundreds, sometimes a thousand dollar difference)

I guess it's complicated, but obviously there's awareness being fueled by more than just the grass being greener on the other side of the ocean; a grassroots understanding. We know there's room for improvement and all we're doing now is both trying to sort through the details of the situation while also coming to conclusions about what's going on today and what is the right path for tomorrow.