TV Service was free to Mexico and points south because the signal is lost near the US border. Therefore under the new rationale these are "short-haul" flights because that's the duration they get the signal for.
IMHO I don't really care about the charging for snack mix, there's only so many bags of doritos/sun chips that I can eat before I start refusing the snack anyway, so at least this way there's the option for some variety. I do wish that they would extend it a bit further and offer a few other more-expensive options similar to the UA snackboxes... I would gladly pay $5 or more if they did some nice non-perishable stuff like cheese/crackers/sausage/etc a la' the United MiniMeal.