fucking Batman

I have successfully avoided cable up to this point, but I did use my own modem back when I used DSL. It wasn't advertised anywhere, but I just took the details from their modem and called support for the last bit I needed and used my own. It worked well, and I had my router be separate so I was able to just toss the modem when I got better service.

I don't think that's true. Their techs may claim that, but you van buy compatible modems online and find a helpful phone support person to get the details you need. Read up a bit on it first because they're not going to walk you through it.

You can use your own. But at every single point they're going to tell you that your brand new top of the line modem, is out of date and is probably the problem of any issue that you're having. They try so hard to gaslight customers in believing that you need to use their white labeled equipment. They want you to use their stuff and pay the fees so they can resell the Wi-Fi, and they have full control over your device.

I really fucking hope I'm just being paranoid, but this is absolutely possible given the already existing research. AI isn't going to launch nukes, it's just going to facilitate horrors beyond our wildest comprehension.

Edit: This article is from 9 years ago, before the current ai boom, we're fuckin' cooked.
https://www.inc.com/joseph-steinberg/how-wifi-lets-people-read-your-lips-identity-you-and-read-your-writing.html

Yeah I recently switched from cable to fiber (finally available), and prior I was using an old as fuck modem/router that capped at 500Mbps. My internet at fastest was 380. I rarely transfer files over the network, so figured why bother? (I did have Gen1 Google Mesh though to cover dead spots). I had a bit of a shopping splurge when I got fiber. Nothing crazy, just an upgraded mesh and a switch (Why the fuck does Frontier provide an ONT with 8 ethernet ports but only one is active?)

Coax is generally a terrible and more expensive option, lower speeds all around and a worse ping. Especially now with fibre being so standard you shouldn't go for Coax if you have the choice.

Currently I do not have the choice so I have to pay 40 euro a month for 100mbps down and 25mbps up, with fibre I get symetrical gigabit for 45 euro a month or 400mbps symetrical for 40 euro. That's 16 times the upload speed for the same money.
And the first party with their coax (VodafoneZiggo) sells their coax as a fiber-cable. Which is just misleading bullshit.

Heck the 5G modem I had was unstable at times, but the download was 100-200mbs and I paid 25 euro a month for that.

Like I responded in the other comment, I can get fibre with 4 times the download speed and 16 times the upload speed for the same amount of money. And that is pretty standard since it is apparently a way cheaper thing to offer for companies.

I can't get anything cheaper than that because it's a price I got when the reseller started business and as long as I don't switch, I get that price.

Good for you that you can get better, but coax still has its place until internet providers up their game, but I won't hold my breath.

The show continuum used it too.

Mad at the concept, but at least it's off by default. Had Xfinity for 2 years and was running my own modem and router anyway, so I'm all set if I decide to switch back at this point

Rental? How much is rental?

As others have said, highly location dependent.

I switched from Xfinity to T-Mobile 4 years ago because tmobiles speed (raw speed) blew Xfinity out of the water...especially for upload. Latency and jitter suffered a bit but not enough to greatly effect voice calls. It didn't help my online gaming skills, but likely would've if I were a higher-caliber gamer. For me, the latency between chair and gamepad was much more impactful.

However Xfinity did some upgrades in my area and the roles have reversed so I'm back to Xfinity. Tmo is still absolutely usable, but Xfinity now offering 250mbps upload makes my mouth water.