Cable companies created regional monopolies with municipalities and used that protection to lay their lines. By the time the 1992 Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act rolled around, they'd established natural monopolies based on that infrastructure and they have benefitted from that ever since.
They don't want to be "dumb pipes", but they also won't give access to those dumb pipes, ensuring that no one else can compete with them upstream. Seems they shouldn't be able to have it both ways, but here we are. So, the next-best-thing would be to assign protection through edicts like Net Neutrality and rigorous anti-trust policing.
Yet, these are now being dismantled as well. Not a good place we're heading.
