"Do you want them to encrypt the signals and sell a decryption box?" You sound like you think this is some sort of impossibility, but that's exactly how cable

"Do you want them to encrypt the signals and sell a decryption box?" You sound like you think this is some sort of impossibility, but that's exactly how cable provided multiple packages back in the analog days.... The reason OTA networks aren't allowed to do that is that the spectrum is considered a public resource and the government made that a term of their lease. There's nothing impossible about that idea.