What?!? But then how are companies going to manipulate their pricing to attract new customers away from their competitors without actually cutting any revenue? They neeeed this to keep their numbers up so they look more attractive to investors and get more money. Are you not thinking of the shareholders? Why won't anyone think of the shareholders!

/s ... if that was not obvious

So, it goes like this:

"WE only want to charge you $X! But here are the fees the government tacks on. For your benefit, we'll break those fees out local/state/federal. See? It's them fucking you, not us.

And because we're all being hit so unfairly, we're just passing it on, cost of doing business. And there's overhead to dealing with all that nonsense, tacking that on as well. And one more, because fuck you gonna do? Break down all this mess and point fingers?"

Enrages everyone, but deflects blame from the ISP. Perfect, ain't it?

Funny thing is, much of that bullshit talk is true! If they roll it up in a nice total, you don't what or why you're paying. And yes, many of those fees, especially the small ones, are government taxation. Taxation they have to account for, and someone has to pay.

OTOH, the "fuck you" charges are disingenuous. Those should be wrapped up in $X.

Only answer I got is to make ISPs quasi-government/private hybrids, and regulate them like the utilities they are in 2024.

I expect them to profit. I expect them to provide for investors. That's how corporations work. You bet your money, you expect a fair return, and much of our individual funds (retirement) get a tiny piece. They should have money in the bank to absorb future risk, unknown costs. That's OK!

But why the hell are basic services, and I now count telecom as "basic", allowed such wild profit margins?!

We had such a "quasi" deal with the regional power company, seemed to work great (and I admit ignorance on the details). Leadership was elected and accountable. Until it got bought out by a private firm and prices spiked 40%. How the fuck was that legal?!

(Sorry about the rant OP. I was in the game for some time, thought about this a lot.)

Nope, nationalize it. Texas has a million energy providers and still hasn't had prices as low as when it was a public utility. The same applies to every other utility such as water or internet.

I’m super lucky. Apartment has integrated dirt cheap symmetrical 1gb for ~$30/mo

I pay $39.99 USD for 300 megabit symmetrical fiber.

$80/mo symmetrical gig, no cap, fiber. ATT is shit but they've been very reliable with this service, first time I've been a happy customer of theirs.

~$70 for a 500/30 plan on Spectrum over on the east coast for me.

Also no data cap, thankfully...

75Mbit down / 10 Mbit up with a 1.2TByte monthly cap: $30 a month.

Just went up, but not too bad: $84/mon gigabit symmetrical, and I don’t know of any data cap.

Meanwhile my ex lives in an island of darkness where her HOA has an exclusive contract with Comcast. I believe “the new xFinity 10g network!!!” Is limited to 200/20, plus has horrendous latency, and I think she pays more than me for the abuse

$137/mo USD total.

Microwave service: $100 for 100/100mbps, 1TB of data. $7.00 for fucking DHCP to be enabled on their router. $30 for an additional 1TB of data.

You're going to get numbers all over the place lol.

I'm $70 for a gig up and down. My parents are $150 for 150mb down and either 15mb or 25mb up. They also have a 1 gig soft cap before getting throttled.

I have symmetrical gigabit for $75/month. It was $65 but Centurylink decided to raise it randomly a few months ago with no warning. The notification that my bill would be going up came after the date they said it would be going up and after I received the increased bill. No data cap though and no extra bullshit fees.

The alternative is through Wave that would not be symmetrical and would come with a cap.

$120 USD for 700/20

~75$ for 1gb - Fiber. Otherwise looking at 100$+ for the same with a cap.

~130$ for 100 to 200mb - Starlink. From a relative who lives rural south of me and only has HughesNet as an alternative because the only cable provider doesn't want to service an additional mile for a few houses.

IDK, I think it's around probably around $100 or more because xfinity made it cheaper to bundle with an unnecessary TV service that only my parents really ever use.

I don't know what our actual speed down and up is since we live in an apartment, so that might scew results. All I know is I usually get better speeds in the middle of the night when people aren't active online.

$56 for 500, no caps

$80usd for like 200 mbit down, 10 up. Cable monopoly in my area. FiOS isn't super far away but it isn't getting closer...

oof getting robbed, Rogers has gigabit for around 80CAD if you negotiate with them. Assuming you're in a city with them

My friend in the country pays $135 US/month for 400mbps down, 20mbps up (realistic speeds are closer to 50x5), and that's after he negotiated. Originally, they wanted to charge him $150 US. I told him to go elsewhere. He said he has Spectrum or ATT ($65 US/month for 25x5). Pity.