That money comes almost entirely from a special tax on those same companies. It's like adding a 10% sales tax to each iPhone or Pixel and then giving the money back to Apple and Google to subsidize phones for people in need. It'd be weird to call that "money we've ... given them."
To the contrary, usually when we impose special excise taxes like that we do so to discourage what we perceive as undesirable industries (alcohol, tobacco, gambling, sugary drinks). It's the height of political innumeracy to expect a different result with internet service just because our intentions for imposing the excise tax are different.
> That money comes almost entirely from a special tax on those same companies. It's like adding a 10% sales tax to each iPhone or Pixel and then giving the money back to Apple and Google to subsidize phones for people in need. It'd be weird to call that "money we've ... given them."
It is quite literally "money we've ... given them."
You are wrong in that the subsidies are not a tax on the companies. The subsidies are a fee collected from the subscribers by the companies on behalf of the government.
Those subsidies are then distributed to different incumbents, based on applications. This distribution is not based on which companies collected and how much. The collection and distribution are disconnected.
So to summarize, it is indeed "our money", since it's being collected from us and if it wasn't we'd get to keep the money hand have cheaper service. It is also "given" away as a subsidy to incumbents.
In other words, "money we've ... given them."
What's wierd is not that we give them our money. What's wierd is that this is not a regular tax, but a fee tagged on to telecom services. But hey, it's far easier to tax by proxy, call it a fee and somebody else do the dirty work. At least rhen you don't need to call it a tax.
To the contrary, usually when we impose special excise taxes like that we do so to discourage what we perceive as undesirable industries (alcohol, tobacco, gambling, sugary drinks). It's the height of political innumeracy to expect a different result with internet service just because our intentions for imposing the excise tax are different.