I think the companies do the math because most of us in small towns are all considered rural somehow.  All the unincorporated outskirts of the local towns have fiber, the rural subdivisions, and anyone who lives in the right little area next to the original headquarters of the fiber coop has it.  They have backbones throughout the countryside but are still getting around to get enough crews to trench it in everywhere else.  I know they are doing the bestest for the mostest and definitely the most connected folks (politics) but as you say, the guy who doesn’t have any other option at all keeps staying there.  I have gig coop fiber at my place, the farm has private fiber installed through the front yard and gets poor 10Mbps DSL through copper instead of getting a glass line 200-ft into the farm.  Crazy.