I'm surprised at the sentiment of the bulk of the posts in this thread. Are we really still clinging to this idea that we should be able get major discounts but still get everything we want to watch? That's great for us but why do the other players want to take those losses?
As we are increasingly seeing, all the "new model" thinking for those that can actually deliver what the bulk of us want is revolving around maintaining and/or growing average annual revenue per subscriber rather than cutting it. In those situations where a little money can be saved, tangible sacrifices are being made. For example, how many of these deliver the audio in 5.1 channels as readily as SATT & Cable? How's the picture quality vs. SATT & Cable? How many have features like commercial-skipping on SATT & Cable DVRs? Yes, there does seem to always be at least 1+ desirable channel/programming left out. And on and on.
After years and years of building up home theaters, are we really satisfied to save $10-$30 for faux 5.1 surround sound instead of the real thing? After migrating to HD and now 4K TVs, are we really satisfied with the relative picture quality and playback hiccups of these kinds of services? Do we want gimped, pseudo DVR-like functions (and typically only a small subset of full DVR functions) instead of a real DVR so that we can save $10-$30/month?
And before someone replies with the horror extreme of paying hundreds per month to cable because they never shop around and let all of their discounts expire, note that traditional players like DISH offer their flex pack for this same fee:
http://www.dishpromotions.com/dish-network-tv-packages/ locking that price for 2 years, with a real DVR, good HD picture, 5.1 sound, integrate OTA channels into the same guide and record on the same DVR, etc.
In short, some seem to be getting what we think we want in terms of less channels but at not much lower pricing, giving up niceties like real DVR functionality, 5.1 surround, sometimes (same) quality HD picture, and a few channels or access to programming we do want. Are we happy now?
Personally, I think best hope here is that all these streaming options at about mid-package cable pricing might pressure SATT & Cable to sharpen their pencils with traditional offerings for a little less. Then, we get the fuller quality of picture & sound, a real DVR and so on... without burning a byte of broadband data.
Else, where I think this goes if any of these offerings really take hold: your broadband provider will implement or tighten tiers to make up for what they lose in revenues from the cable TV side of their business. In short, they'll still get theirs from "heavier broadband use" billing increases and consumers will be getting less channels with lower quality picture & sound and no (or gimped) DVR functionality.
Flash forward a few years and we may be fondly remembering the "good old days" when we could get 500 channels and a real DVR for less than what the new model costs us... another lesson in "be careful what you wish for."
