I damn well think that cable companies are the new insurance companies. Take your money for basically nothing, obsolete as hell. And are even governmentally allowed to be a monopoly.
They are in the throws of their damn fall. Why do we to pay for internet? Why do I need a damn cable account to watch TV on the internet?
JEEZ!
Still, don't some cities have free (probably terrible) internet?
Then you're just paying for it through taxes. And yes, it's probably terrible, and yes, it's probably very inefficient for what they're budgeted.
Nobody is going to run cable and fiberoptics across continents without expecting something in return.
I'm not aware of any. Some cities have kicked the big ISPs out of their jurisdiction and set up their own service, but that doesn't make it free.
Because even without cable companies, someone needs to provide the infrastructure for you to connect to the internet. That's never going to change.