High Speed Rural Broadband: Don't Bother to Build It

[Commentary] There’s the usual cacophony of subsidy junkies clamoring that we should go build a huge system of fast broadband that will reach every hovel in the land, no matter how rural. The questions is, as with the building of any other form of infrastructure, is cabling the nation actually worth it? Remember the important point here: infrastructure does not make us rich. People using infrastructure to do new things, or to do old things better or more cheaply might, but the cables, roads, railways and bridges of infrastructure do not, in and of themselves, impart wealth. Of course they don't, for they are a cost. We do have to pay to build them after all. There’s no benefit to be had from it so why bother and why tax everyone to provide something that doesn't improve matters?