Broadband cord cutters? If this is a thing, ISPs, regulators and Silicon Valley have utterly failed

I’m supposed to be covering the internet of things, but the story today in the Wall Street Journal on the one percent of people who have reportedly cut their wireline broadband subscriptions to use wireless instead is a hot mess that requires some careful rebuttal. But first, that the Wall Street Journal is even writing about this issue at all, as a possible “thing,” and doing so without directly citing the high cost of wired broadband until the fifth paragraph is rage-inducing.

The WSJ minces around the cost issue by distracting readers with the chimera of more Wi-Fi hotspots and better cellular coverage as the reason people are cutting the wireline cord. But its examples show cost is the issue for most people. Essentially Patrick Downs, quoted in the story, doesn’t want to pay for a wireline connection and a wireless connection, so he picked wireless because mobility is a…