This Leslie Ellis post on the difference between conditional access and digital rights management provides some context:

CA is today, DRM is tomorrow.

But that would ignore the storied history of signal protection in cable, which has many, many chapters. Way back in the days of analog TV, there was mid-band tuning, negative traps, positive traps, sync suppression, interdiction, and addressable scrambling. And that’s a partial list.

Then came digital, which added “encryption” — the digital version of scrambling.

And now, DRM.

As she says, protecting the cable signal goes way back. Protection would continue even in an à la carte world.

I’d be willing to accept encryption of QAM in return for the cable company allowing me to truly pick the channels I wish to receive “a la carte” — but no cable company in America has any plans to do this, and most of the packages are overly broad and restrictive (I don’t want an “all sports” package, thank you, as a casual fan, I would be happy paying just for ESPN!)

As long as I have to pay an inflated price to receive a huge chunk of channels I don’t care about in order to get the few I do, I ought to at least be able to watch those channels on any QAM TV without encryption. It is paranoia by Hollywood that insists on encryption, which will only hurt honest consumers…after all the bootleggers will always be able to find a way to put content online, but myself, an honest guy who just wants to watch TV is gonna get stuck with a crappy cable box that I shouldn’t need.