Here's the thing I find most confusing, and it somewhat goes with what you wrote: Frontier took over Verizon's operations in Eastern Washington, Oregon, and Fort Wayne (Indiana). For a year or more, they were ambivalent or even hostile about the idea of selling FiOS TV. Now, all of a sudden, they've renewed or let stand existing TV franchise agreements and are full-out marketing it again.
I think Frontier realized what you just wrote: Being a "dumb pipe" provider--especially when your company took on a pile of debt to "buy" both aging copper and new-fangled fiber--is not a strategy for success. So now, they figure they've got the TV equipment, so why not go for it?
Personally, and this is apparently me having a minority opinion, I utterly despise Hulu, NetFlix, et al. Why? None of them has matched the ease of use of my TiVo connected to a linear cable lineup. Television is supposed to be an "idiot box" and for me and the other two people in my household, TiVo + FiOS TV = astoundingly easy.
My guess is that any full-fledged "Apple TV" will take your preferences into account. Here's my wild theory:
How many unique TV channels are there in America? OTA and cable. Maybe 2,000? With a ton of redundancy in the programming. What if Apple simply recorded all of them into that big fancy data center? No need for a DVR: Now you can stream anything your cable provider offers any time after it airs whether you have a "season pass" or not.
There will probably be a few annoying restrictions (Shows disappear after two weeks?) and you'll probably have to watch ads. But as far as I can guess, it's the only way Apple can give you time-shifted access to non-streaming programming (e.g., the NFL) without reinventing TiVo, which I'm pretty sure they don't want to do.
It all hinges on whether they can get the contracts ironed out. But the cable/fiber companies will see dollar signs from more expensive "Apple TV" plans (with two year contracts to make the set cheaper?) and the networks may be swayed by the promise that customers will have to watch ads, or pay them to make the ads go away.
I think Frontier realized what you just wrote: Being a "dumb pipe" provider--especially when your company took on a pile of debt to "buy" both aging copper and new-fangled fiber--is not a strategy for success. So now, they figure they've got the TV equipment, so why not go for it?
Personally, and this is apparently me having a minority opinion, I utterly despise Hulu, NetFlix, et al. Why? None of them has matched the ease of use of my TiVo connected to a linear cable lineup. Television is supposed to be an "idiot box" and for me and the other two people in my household, TiVo + FiOS TV = astoundingly easy.