The only way cable and satellite companies start offering a la carte channels is if they start losing subscribers via cord cutting. Right now, that's a very small percentage of the populous. Until they start truly losing business like the music business did on the early 2000's, you won't see a shift to individual channels.
Having worked in the Cable business for 20 years, in Canada, I always chuckle when I see comments like this because they betray a fundamental misunderstanding of how the industry works.
There are 2 main reasons, over and above the greed of cable companies, that there aren't more al a carte offerings from Cable companies.
1) Government regulation - The FTC (or CRTC in Canada) as part of the licensing requirements for Cable operators demands that they offer certain channels as part of their basic package. In Canada these channels include French stations and the CBC among others. In the US (though I don't know for sure) this group of stations would most likely be PBS, a spanish channel and local network affiliates (ABC, FOX etc).
Never watch PBS? Think its stupid to pay for it? Don't blame the Cable companies blame the FTC.
2) Cable Companies are, for the most part, not creators of content but rebroadcasters of content. Thus, if a content creator owns multiple channels and one is very popular (ESPN etc) they will demand that the Cable operator carry all their channels if they want to be able to rebroadcast the popular one. You have seen this play out several times in the past few years when you read about content creators pulling their programming from one Cable operator or another if they cable company didn't pay huge fees to carry ALL of their products / channels.
So, under the current structure of the industry, the cable companies actually have very little flexibility in offering al a carte channels because they themselves cannot buy channels individually whether its a result of government mandate or content creator demand.
Do I feel sorry for the Cable companies. Not really.
But, that being said, arguments are more intelligent when based on facts.