Re: Don't we kind of have this now with TiVo?
Cable card has been a failure. Tivo is the only competitor in that market anyone has ever heard of, and their volume is so tiny that their pricing is outrageous due to the lack of competition. Less than 1% of people bring their own device and rent a cable card. Cable cards are one way only, and don't support the cable company's VOD (which is growing more and more important in today's streaming world) except for a couple of companies that actually support that on a Tivo despite not being required to.
They want to replace that failed standard with something modern - something software based instead of a physical card. Software easily allows that and networks trust it in a way they didn't back in the 90s when Napster made them worry that stealing their content and trading it online for free would be next. They have to trust it because it is using for streaming/VOD content today.
Don't you want to be able to buy a TV that you could just connect to your cable and have it able to work properly with all the channels, show a guide, play VOD content, etc.? That's what they are trying to accomplish here (maybe, hopefully a bit more so you could use a device like a Tivo and your TV would display its guide instead of the cable company's guide so you wouldn't have to depend on what features they give you, but that may be hoping for too much)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
