These cable and internet companies make things so damn complicated

I was a cord cutter for years, moved last year and decided to take advantage of an introductory rate with Spectrum.

When the time was up, I played the cancel game and while they wouldn't give me the same intro rate, the increase was manageable.

A few months later, I'm looking for something completely unrelated on my account and notice the rate is different. So I look at my statement and my payment went up three months ago (thanks autopay), so I call to ask wtf and they tell me it's something out of their control that they're passing back to customers.
The lady then asks me if we have smart TVs. Well, yes we do. She then informs me that I can turn in the cable boxes and use the app instead and that will offset the increase. Brilliant!

So I install the app on the TVs and head to Spectrum to return the cable boxes, that's when I'm informed that I need to keep a minimum of one box . At that point I had enough and canceled the TV service. They go through the process and tell me what my bill will be moving forward ($69 for internet) and I'm thinking...that can't be right, the internet should only be $49. "Sir, that was the bundle rate" .

So now here I am shopping for internet as well. Sure enough there's an AT&T Fiber offer in the mail!
I start looking at the plan in detail and notice that there's an equipment fee (gateway, $10/mo). I google to see if that's mandatory. Sure enough it is. But didn't the FTC ban that? "Sir the law applies to CABLE companies and cable internet. AT&T is not a cable company. AT&T internet is broadband internet service and is exempt."