U.S. Broadband Speed (And Attitude) Sucks

Articles like this one in yesterday’s Washington Post just leave me shaking my head.

In this case it’s for two reasons:

First, because average broadband connection speeds in the United States are 30 (thirty!) times slower than in Japan, and that sucks because we’re paying far too much to the evil telco monopolies for shoddy service and because I like fast connections.

Second, because articles like this reek of the Cold War-era arms race, framing things in terms of a pseudo-competition to have more x than the rest of the world.

National Security Alert Advisory Announcement! OMG! The US isn’t the best at THE INTERNET? Dude, we own the Web. What the hell has gone wrong? Don’t these other countries know their place in the world? Don’t those Japaneseicans and everyone else know we’re supposed to lead in innovation and morality and money and power and health care and everything?

That we’re surprised to find out we’re not the best is one of the biggest reasons we’re not.

Arrogance leading to complacency leading to indignant scoffs of “Buh buh...but how could this be?”

The first line of the Post article doesn’t exactly help our case:

Americans invented the Internet, but the Japanese are running away with it.

Oy.