From what I understand the site is free to Cablevision customers, so it's being used as a retention tool.
It's probably not the best marketing strategy though.
QFT. Almost everyone has missed the entire point of what they did. I'm sure they really couldn't care less if people outside of their customer base sign up. The whole point of having it extremely expensive is to make it look like the current customers of CV will lose a lot if they switch.
