I don't follow. People used to hack DirecTV machines to receive the service for free. DirecTV detected that, and shut all those people down. How much does it cost today to obtain a device that gets free pay-per-view?
There are still people that do it, so far as I understand, but it is a dedicated bunch and takes enough time that it's not something that will easily be in the hands of people that don't have intimate knowledge of the systems.
It used to cost $150? to get unlimited free pay-per-view. I know; I had a hacked card (we paid for DTV, but I liked being able to record The Simpsons from every local network carried on DTV, back when The Simpsons was actually decent).
