Words mean things
In what way is DirecTV simplifying my programming options when they offer me Total Choice, Total Choice PLUS, and Total Choice PREMIER?

How can there possibly be such a thing as Total Choice PLUS? If it's Total, there's nothing more to add to it. And if Total Choice Premier is really totally, er, total, then plain old Total Choice isn't Total at all, is it?

I wish this were unique.

Oh, I know, I know. The reason the dish companies dazzle us with options is to obscure the fact that the one option we really, really want -- true a la carte choice, channel by channel -- they're not going to offer. I'd love to get a package of twenty to thirty channels that we'd actually watch, without having to take thirty to seventy more channels that, for our tastes, are just taking up space on the dial.

I mean, obviously the technology is there, they could do it (they can do pay-per-view, after all), they just won't. They make money selling us those unwanted channels, so that isn't going to change.