You seriously believe this will increase processing costs to say Verizon or Comcast?

They are not the only ones using this dark pattern, and it does get escalated to more expensive employees even at Comcast.

Of course it does. With a provider as large as that they surely engage in negotiations with credit card providers, and you can bet that the fraudulent charge rate is a huge part of that discussion.

Verizon/Comcast's handling of recurring cancellations is directly tied to Visa's cost of doing business with them.