Dish was never the only channel "removing" channels in the many years that have passed. Please, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts has dropped his share of channels (NFL was perhaps the biggest fight he picked) and his uber hardball negotiating makes Charlie look like a pussycat. DirecTV recently "took down" VS in an action that lasted months before its return, and a lot more people were more upset at that takedown than Disney and Dish's current action of not having the silly kiddie channels in HD, and those kids could not care less if the trash content on those channels is in HD. As far as Dish, quite a number of the channels that Dish had to no longer offer due to some disagreement has come crawling back (Lifetime just as one example, and that resulted in DirecTV suing Lifetime)
The point is that just about every cable company and satellite company has in the past had and currently have litigation with some of its channel providers. They all play the same game, and while Dish is least likely to agree to a carriage agreement that it views as unsound to its business, Dish is hardly alone in the "takedown" game and the "see you in court" game.
The effect so far is that Dish--today-- has about 35 more HD channels than my local cable company, and while Verizon has more premiums in HD, Dish still has more of the standard package HD channels than Verizon, as just 2 examples, and still more than DirecTV over all, according to may last count. In other words, shills (wearing Disney mouse ears while posting from the corporate offices in Burbank) are crying about not being able to see Zeke & Luther in HD on the inconsequential Disney XD nor Miley Cyrus on silly Disney HD nor the numerals in glorious HD that are the scores over ESPN News. In other words, about a whole lot of nothing. Shills can be so shrill. Sorry it was such a hot day yesterday for you out in Burbank. The Valley is always way too hot in the summer.
