Charter to Now Charge $200 Activation Fee for 100 Mbps Tier → I'd pay the activation fee

I'd pay $2000 activation fee for 100 Mb. Since I'm on Time Warner, I doubt I'll see speeds like that in my lifetime.

Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Netflix need to team up to provide 1Gb symmetrical service nationwide and render the TV cable companies to irrelevance.

100% agree. It's the only way anyone can break this cable stronghold on America.

If they tried, you can bet that the cable companies would team up to lobby for (and probably get) legislation in many states preventing MS/Google/etc from going in to the ISP business, that has been their MO everywhere so far.