It's way easier than you'd think to start an ISP - at least if you're content to only provide internet to datacenter servers. That's a competitive market. You can buy switches and routers and servers, rent colo space, rent leased lines between DCs, pay for internet access from some upstreams and IXes and sell internet access to others in the same DCs. It's still difficult but it's possible, even for an individual. And you won't make any money on that because it's a competitive market.
The real challenge is then getting that access out to all the surrounding individual homes and businesses. Laying fiber in streets or overhead can be legally difficult and it's also just a ton of physical labour.
If any millionaires or mad scientists are reading this and frustrated with their own internet access, though, please give it a try. There are tons of success stories where someone just created a small ISP to free their small town from an internet monopoly that everyone hated.
Hosting and connectivity by itself is a really efficient cash incinerator - the only way out is to use it as a loss leader and then upsell the customers on other services, or sell them the connectivity as part of a greater package (you're no longer selling "connectivity" you're selling "we maintain and make sure your web service stays online and reachable").
I'm estimating you'll make a profit once you figure out a way to plug thousands of individual homes into your loss-making backbone, and execute on it.
However, the incumbent monopoly might lower prices and improve service quality to match yours. Which is almost mission accomplished, except for the losses you'll be making...
The real challenge is then getting that access out to all the surrounding individual homes and businesses. Laying fiber in streets or overhead can be legally difficult and it's also just a ton of physical labour.
If any millionaires or mad scientists are reading this and frustrated with their own internet access, though, please give it a try. There are tons of success stories where someone just created a small ISP to free their small town from an internet monopoly that everyone hated.