--On Demand movie rentals. Don't have to leave the house to rent physical things or wait for Netflix to send things. Sometimes they have movies for rent that aren't even in the theater yet. Have them before places like Netflix, too.
--Still generally higher visual quality than the internet, when you have a big screen TV. (Netflix "HD" is ok/watchable but it's definitely nowhere near HD when blown up to 50"+)
--Don't have to wait for things to buffer/download/reload (Netflix when it's not 3am, argh), aren't limited by internet outages, slowdowns, website downages, movies split up into multiple sections, etc.
--We don't have a Tivo, so their (no extra cost) On-Demand of popular TV shows (both network and cable networks) is handy.
--Sports. A lot of baseball I like to watch is no longer shown by the original, main networks anymore. They're mostly on the cable sports networks. Even my local teams.
I agree, however, that their prices for basic packages (no "pay" stations) is too much these days. I think we pay around $100 for the HD package + $20 for HBO. That's not including the internet, which we purchase separately (bundles don't offer the type of internet we need). So for us it's about paying to have options. Do we watch all those extra channels? Not really. Do we rent tons of movies? Not really. But if we feel like it, it's there.
