I don't think it's consumer apathy so much as lack of alternatives. My only choice for internet (other than dial-up) is Comcast. There's a DSL provider in town, but even if I was ok with DSL speeds, they don't serve my neighborhood.

When I lived in Silicon Valley, it was barely better, I could chose from Comcast or Sonic Fusion DSL. I tried Sonic for a while, but my distance from the CO limited my speed (and maybe line quality) to around 8mbit/sec.