OTA is not very good in my experience. I've tried to help several people set it up and yet to have anyone that can reliably get good enough signal to pull in a channel in HD. I'm frankly baffled that this has not been a bigger complaint, but apparently it is working for some people?
Actually they're not. They're specifically locking people out to try and force them to pay. They could very easily unencrypt the signals. It would probably actually benefit Comcast even (as I'm sure they probably have to do something extra to force the encryption).
What kind of sense does that make? "Hey guys, I'm mad about the little fees that keep increasing, so fuck it I'll cancel ALL of it!" Ok, that's really got to be a joke or trolling. You think people can switch? And that switching to DSL would be feasible? Your argument is "is you're mad about getting screwed by one megacorp, just switch to another one that will both screw you in the same ways and also provide worse service for little if any discount in price, that will sure teach them!
That's the whole point. We don't have choices. You can't tell the companies to fuck off because you just end up in a circle of shitty companies fucking you over. The government was finally getting off their ass and doing something about it (well some in the government), and now they're probably going to flip and work to actively let those companies fuck us over worse. We'll literally be paying them to craft laws enabling them to screw us over. The Republicans have even been fucking gloating about this (like they regularly have been when they've fucked us over, they'll brag until they get called out and then they just start screaming Obama, and its working because people have lost their minds with regards to being informed and making rational decisions).
There were a lot of positive actions under Obama, or more specifically under Wheeler as chair of the FCC. He actually listened to consumers and did a lot of things to try and improve the situation, but the Republicans continually threw tantrums and they've been very open that they're going to gut basically everything that Wheeler did. And that's if they don't outright gut the FCC (they won't since they have control now, don't be surprised if they grow the powers just so they can try to lock in things the telecoms want).
Even with regards to Comcast in specific they blocked the Comcast-Time Warner merger (not that allowing the ATT DirecTV merger was good, or likewise the Charter-Time Warner merger). They also specified what counts as broadband which showed how little competition was actually happening (and really highlighted how much control Comcast has). And of course reclassification as Title II.
That's not to say Democrats historically were generally much better with regards to getting bought off by telecoms (a lot of the problems we're facing now are due to the 1996 Telecom Act, although if I remember right, that was a pretty non-partisan situation and the Republicans had a lot of hand in crafting it), but the Republicans are openly doing this stuff and people don't seem to care.