A Short Note on Optimality

Via Eszter, there is one thing that is very clear from this graphic (duplicated below because I can’t figure out how to embed it):

There is an excess of home-based internet capacity in the United States, for which people are definitionally paying too much.

The question is whether this is a problem. If you argue it is not—that the excess spending gets reinvested and used to develop new products and services that, on balance, benefit the economy—then please explain this in the context of any contemporary economic model.

Discuss in comments.