Who I have the same questioned this solution

Those articles are not specific to the issue of usb tethering on the verizon s4, just general software use hardships/bugs. The issue I'm having seems to be an untended result of not having the related feature/subscription on my "plan". Unintended probably because it was unforeseen to the developers anyone may want to use to the usb tether feature for anything other than sharing an online data connection with whatever is connected to the phone. Do you have an article with other carrier users with the same issue on the S4?