And, at my place in San Francisco I can pay $70/mo for either 20/5 from AT&T or 1000/300 from Xfinity.

No fiber available.

If only it were 300. It’s unfortunately 30. Higher speeds are for Comcast Business.

And you pay out the nose for it. I'm paying Comcast Business around $150/mo for 100/20 (though the 20 is usually more like 15). I don't want to think about what 1000/300 would cost.

It's embarrassing that I live in San Francisco of all places and this is the best I can do. Google/WebPass, AT&T fiber, and Sonic all aren't available at my address (a 10-year-old small condo building). Monkeybrains is an option, but they only guarantee 25Mbps, and you only find out if you get something better (but they seem to max out at 80Mbps or so) after they install the antenna on your roof.

People in Romania pay about $10 / month, including router and no binding.

There's no need for Comcast to force you into a binding term contract when so many of their customers have no other wired internet options. I live in Menlo Park and it's either Comcast or cellular (which would be quite expensive, even for the relatively modest use in my house).