In the grand scheme of things, what we choose to watch and not watch, pay for and not pay for, on cable TV doesn't amount to a hill of beans. And yet we love to kvetch about cable. We rant about having to pay for things we don't want in order to get the things we do want. We complain about what's on the basic cable side and what's on the premium side. And, of course, we complain about what it all costs.

[Ready for pick-and-pay with TV channels? Who wins, who loses]

It would be nice to think that changes coming next year, which will require all TV providers to offer a basic — skinny — package of channels for no more than $25 per month and also give consumers the option of ordering individual channels — à la carte or in small bundles — are the result of cable companies and industry regulator the CRTC finally hearing what consumers have been saying for years. Don't force feed us, give us choice. And offer price options so people who want only the basics can get it cheap.

But don't kid yourself. That's only part of what is happening here. Yes, the Harper government made a commitment in this regard, and yes the CRTC promised to get the changes made in the coming year. But ideas such as these have been on the table for a long time and the providers have always been fiercely resistant, arguing they need the ability to structure content in a way that sustains their business model. Too much choice and too many options would erode that and ultimately hurt consumers, they have argued in the past.

So what changed? Just this. We're talking about survival here. The cable barons who control the industry in Canada have seen the writing on the wall, as have all purveyors of traditional media — newspaper companies included. Netflix and other so-called "new" providers have changed the landscape, making traditional cable TV content less necessary. Look at the state of prime-time TV drama and comedy if you don't believe that. Where are the best new shows available? Probably not traditional commercial TV networks.

And that's not the biggest factor at play. That would be audience fragmentation. More and more consumers, especially younger ones, aren't buying into the "must-have-cable" argument at all. They're eschewing traditional TV in favour of streaming and downloading on to a laptop, or through some web interface through the big screen TV. Sometimes they're paying and often they're not — we say that without condoning piracy. In any case, these folks have either left the world of cable or they never landed there to start with. And they're not coming back, any more than other traditional industries — taxi and traditional media advertising come to mind — will revert to their previous before-we-were-disrupted state of relative bliss.

If these developments mean affordable change and choice, bravo. But let's not kid ourselves about the motivation — it's called adapt or perish.