Sometime in the future, we will not have to worry about things like this. Everything will be bought online. Internet2 or something faster will be everywhere and we will just buy the game then download it.
Internet2 mostly improves multicasting, not individual downloads. My favorite part of I2 is single packet, multiple destinations.
Also, I can see when games will become pay-as-you-play. One will buy minutes and then play the game for the specified amount of time.
I'm shocked to hear this from you, considering how much of a privacy advocate you are.
This "pay as you go" idea was killed entirely by consumers already in another market. Have you heard of Divx? It was a pay-per-view DVD format. You bought a DVD for $4.99 and brought it home. IT was good for 72 hours and then you had to keep buying it.
A year later, the format was dead, replaced by open DVD, the current format.
I bring up the privacy point because there has been no subscription service of this kind that doesn't snoop on consumers and share your info with advertisers.