If you believe that the Internet is owned by all of you (i.e taxpayers), you do not understand how the internet is organized, built, maintained or operated.
The internet “highway” is NOT paid for by the government. It IS paid for by the Internet Service Providers who buy the links (and pay for the links and maintain the links and operate the links) between themselves and other internet service providers.
Why should internet provider go and build a second version of what they have already paid for?
You the taxpayer, dont own any dark fiber unless the government (city, county, state, feds) purchased the fiber, installed the fiber and pays for the right of way for fiber. All other dark fiber is OWNED by the company, usually a telecom or ISP that paid to have it installed. If you want the tax payers to have / own an internet service, then it is the government that can go out and build their own private ISP. As an example, see https://www.fcgov.com/broadband/
The original internet was funded by taxes. Since then, you are right. When a private company invests in it’s own infrastructure, it has a right to make its own terms. But the internet is global, so every private company has to interface with other infrastructure at some point.