You can do what I did; get rid of all the cable boxes in your home and replace with a DVR like Tivo. Yes, I still have to pay a fee for the cable card but it is considerably less. While it's true I cannot get pay-per-view events and on demand from my cable company that is one of the reasons why I have a DVR and subscribe to Netflix.

In theory you will not be paying for box rentals for the rest of your life. Even cable companies will like to eliminate these boxes in the near future and route everything a different way. Cable boxes are not usually profit centers for cable companies. The ill-functioning boxes plague cable companies with having to make service calls, swaps, and faiilures.