I generally agree, but I think you're conflating two kinds of content protection. One prevents the attacker from accessing something they aren't subscribed to,

I generally agree, but I think you're conflating two kinds of content protection. One prevents the attacker from accessing something they aren't subscribed to, and relies on crypto and secure subscriber identity mechanisms. This is completely possible to implement soundly. The other prevents the attacker from copying something they can see or listen to, and relies on bizarre mechanisms designed to prevent the user from learning the state of their hardware. I find the latter awful, because it's an infinitely losing battle (you can always point a camera at your display in the end) which erodes consumer freedoms and encourages walled gardens. Satellite TV is a funny example - since the communication is strictly one-way, the hardware state needs to be protected or it can be cloned, but I still think it's fundamentally a question of the transport protection variety rather than the copy protection one.