Depends entirely on the card! Annual fees can be either $0, as small as $30/year, or as high as $500/year (AMEX Platinum) and up. AMEX Centurion is invite only, it's for millionaire high spenders and has a $2,500/annual fee. Barclays Luxury Card is open to everyone and I believe it has a $900/year annual fee.

Some cards waive the annual fee the first year and some don't. It's whatever the card issuer decides makes them the most money.

Personally, I pay two annual fees and have a third one waived for now. Some of the cards I have I've downgraded to the less benefits no annual fee version of the card after collecting the annual fee version benefits for a year.

Many, many cards have no annual fee. The ones that do, are usually worth it for the right customers- e.g. a travel card that comes with a lot of actually-valuable travel perks for the frequent flyer.

Credit cards with an annual fee simply for the privilege of having a credit card, are mostly gone, chased out of the market much like the takeover of free checking.

It varies. I don't have anything like 16. But I have a couple of cards with specific reward benefits that I pay for plus a number of free ones for benefit and other reasons.