Here's where it gets scarier than Hell for affiliates and pretty fun for the home viewer. I've owned in 20 years. You'll put a big-ass monitor in the living room and watch whatever you want, all the time. It will be there, and it will probably be free. They'll thrive for the same reason teevee and radio and glossy magazines thrive - advertising is part of the deal .
Commercials are an accepted part of television.
And commercials will run on broadband feeds as they do on broadcast and cable. Somebody will make money. The bills will be paid. People expect a hundred channels on every teevee, they demand radio and free music on their PCs, they're getting used to satellite systems that bring home a lot more than the hometown cable company. The idea of the NAB wrangling over Internet-radio royalties , as they have this week, is almost quaint.