MBAs are mercenaries, that's part of their formation. They fully expect to be working somewhere else when things start looking bad.
They are just doing what mercenaries have been doing for millennia : cost a lot in peace time, loot the population, and run away or cut a deal with the invader when the goings get though.
A good example is the Russian "Africa Corp" in Mali. Expensive, atrocities against the population and cut a deal with the jihadist to run away when they came last month.
It is heavily dependent on the history of your area.
I am near Lyon (12km away), I had 20mb then 100Mb coaxial cable very early because the "département" built a public network and eventually leased it to private companies.
I finally switched to fiber 3 years ago when it became available in my street.
The cell network is fairly bad however (even with 2 cell towers less than 1km from my place).
I personally think that the more appropriate quote from 1984 is this one, because the cruelty is the whole point :
“The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.” He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: “How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”
Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.
“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?[...]”"
https://acoup.blog/2025/05/02/collections-why-archers-didnt-...