[ Unfortunately this is going to be a long reply...]
But what exactly are you asking for?
Nothing, really. I'm mostly stating Syfy is behind where the market is going at a time where a lot of their intended audience has been burned by them in the past and dubious of the quality of their offerings. While Syfy isn't making it easier for that audience to change their mind.
If I had my options I'd prefer Syfy offer something like a direct subscription to Syfy.com (a la Netflix/Hulu/AmazonPrime), along side a free cable validation (I mean the system for streaming still exists regardless of the authentication method). I might not mind purchasing a series of theirs via iTunes or Amazon, but their content prices seem to be more expensive for some shows than competing networks. And I don't really want to drop money on them until I have a sense of the quality of the work. I have been burned too many times in the past to trust them as a brand.
Let me use an example of my content consumption. I recently got into "The Americans". I watched the pilot back when I had cable, but didn't pick up the show. A couple of weeks ago, after numerous online posts and friend recommendations I gave the first 2 seasons a try on Amazon Prime. From there I purchased a season 3 pass and got current. Going forward I have no issues paying for Season 4 on Amazon. The quality of the content is engaging enough, and I am far enough along in that I'm not going anywhere.
In the case of Syfy, this is a series that is close to what I want from them. But it could be as problematic as Ascension was from a quality perspective. (Which was available in entirety via Hulu). Given my reservations, and general reluctance to pirate, I merely want Syfy to give me an option to prove my reservations wrong about them in general. In a manner that doesn't require excessive hoops.
In the end, as tends to happen with Syfy content, I tend to wait until they make it available on Netflix (as I mentioned). I watched Helix S1 that way and thought I might give season 2 a go. But quickly ran into Hulu offering 3 episodes and mysteriously giving up and moving behind the "Connect a provider" option. And of course it didn't help that Helix turned into the most absurd collection of "twists" since LOST.
Simply: Won't pirate. Don't have cable. Willing to give Syfy a try but don't trust them enough to go the extra steps they are asking to get their stuff. Finding out I will probably have to wait until they push this show over to Netflix sometime next year before the season starts.
Who know, maybe then I will buy S2 on Amazon and become a fanboy. That's assuming S1 does enough business to justify S2. Though Syfy could always improve the odds by offering easier access to the content....
(I say all of the above as someone who's go to, default channel for nearly a decade was Syfy.)