I believe I should pay as well. And I happily would pay the $120 monthly the cable company wants for two years if I could get a license that let me download all the content via newsgroups and have non-DRMed MKV's that I can use wherever I want for my PERSONAL use. I do not want to pay for Comcast's awful distribution, I want to pay for a license to download the content for my personal use, regardless of what distributor I use.
I have long thought that there was a potential insurgent business model here: sell a lifetime license to a particular piece of content, which the user is now allowed to acquire by whatever means they choose. In essence, you pay for the content holder to waive their right to sue, and nothing more.
It'd be a tough sell for Big Content, but once it generated sufficient revenue for indie and niche stuff to prove the model, eventually they would come around if it meant an excuse to charge you for the White Album yet again. You could also collect pledges or pre-payments from users so that they could put a dollar value on how much revenue they're missing out on.
