I'm an unfortunate captive of the oligopoly of the internet industry in the USA. In many places, you have 2-3 choices of internet, and all of them suck ass. I'm in this situation. All internet providers in my area have a 1-1.5 terabyte data cap. So when I download Call of Duty for 250 gb and it fails and has to update or reinstall, I've wasted 500 gb, and have now reached 50% of my data cap in just 1 day. There are crazy fees, for example, Cox Cable says:
If you go over, we’ll automatically add 50 gigabytes of data for $10 to your next bill. That's enough for about 15 hours of streaming HD video. If you use that 50 gigabytes, we automatically add another 50 gigabytes for $10 and so on until you reach our $100 limit of data overage charges or until your next usage cycle begins.
So your $90 a month internet can easily become $190 a month, which is fuckin criminal, like that is so scummy and asinine how that can even be legal. But it is perfectly legal. The FCC is also looking into these data caps but now that we have a new anti-federal government president elect... This is probably toast.... Nothing will change now that most federal agencies are about to be deleted.
From a technology standpoint too, nothing is really getting better
Comcast is still using Coax instead of Fiber Optic and desperately trying to convince people that somehow, someway coax can be just as good. Do with that info what you will, I have no opinions on it. There was a Federal program started recently to expand rural internet access, which will probably be gutted in 2025 leaving many without suitable internet again. Fiber Optic is fast, but still, not new technology, and doesn't solve a critical issue.... It doesn't matter if you have 2 Gigabit internet if no one in the world is uploading even half that fast. A single download on Steam is like 450 Mbps, Epic Games launcher is horrifically slow. I get like 120 Mbps max when downloading Fortnite updates even with 1500 Mbps internet hard wired to my router with top tier hardware
It's just sad to think about the future of internet in the USA, and knowing we'll be imprisoned by these data caps for the foreseeable future.
Hah, my dad was the same way about the internet, and... not wrong, it looked so hopeful, yet now so dark. But then again, I'm a guy who hasn't had the proper combination of time/money/ability to get out of my country as the closest border is an 8 hour straight drive so about as close to the center of big country talking to someone on the other side of the world about the politics of our lands, so, who knows, maybe a little light there.
The thing I find is that... so much of what's going on is a pattern. Been joking when talking with my dad about the book World War Z I understand why people follow Nostradamus more, as a book written in 2006 is talking about the very problems that are happening today and coming up with some honestly concerning predictions. But then, a student of history and paying attention to current events can make someone look like a seer. As you say, the shipping to China, it's madness, except China has been pushing to take over just about everyones markets by being the cheapest even over keeping it own countries, but now they're becoming a dominant superpower again. I know in the US situation, it was because the Pre-Trump Republicans had become so business "friendly" (bowed the knee to the businesses above all else) that their attitude of "Free market" was fine to ship everything overseas to be made even at the cost of the workers here.
The banking crisis as you talk about, here again, but it was the Democrats that bailed them out... why? Aren't they opposition to the Republicans? The thing is the Democrats in the 90s freaked out when Ronald Reagan got in power, then H.W. Bush followed him, and so Clinton came in as the business friendly Democrat, and that's been the doctrine since. There hasn't actually been a workers party in the US as long as I've been alive.
I wish we could've been like Iceland, but when Democrats had control of the house, senate, and presidency they couldn't even get a healthcare plan that involved a government option, just the government giving insurance companies money, going after the banks is a non-starter in this country probably until the next depression.
Trump... honestly was one of the logical conclusions (I threw up in my mouth a little typing that), on one hand he's been the anti-establishment. In my state, where the capitol is over 1000 miles away, and I'm one of the closer half of the country, people have been sick of "DC elites", not all there's entire discussions on the Republican strategies otherwise, and the person that hurts the elites must be good. Trump is part of the establishment now, but he doesn't act like it, and the news doesn't act like it, still treats him like an outsider. That got a lot of people up when they don't pay attention to any news.
I think a lot of the problems caused and had by the US is by age, the country punches way above its weight class, lot of power very very fast. That wouldn't be a problem except we're still dealing with the fallout of our civil war that was 160 years ago, but the way the country views it is as if it were ancient times. Hell there are people who were alive when Civil Rights happened and yet it's taught in schools like it is so far back no one could remember it. If you're at all curious on that I do have a bit of an unhinged TED talk here in where our school history fails to discuss the context that's happened through history. On if that's on purpose, that's yet another completely different unhinged TED talk lol.