A la carte is generally not described as running around searching 2-3 totally independent services, dealing with 2-3 different UI's, business models, etc, but having the ability to get discrete packages from a single provider which expressing on the programs you are interested in, and paying a fractional sum that is roughly proportional to the amount of content you selected versus the amount of content available in "the big package". Thus not being forced to subsidize groups such as sports fans, if you are not a sport fan.

I don't really think your statement connects well with this discussion. My understanding of the current discussion in this thread is a general dislike of how the major players are carving out exclusive deals ensuring the content distribution is fragmented and the only strategy to get a decent mix of content requires using multiple services each with different UI's, pricing models, ad policies, etc.