IPTV subscriptions are an alternative to regular cable tv subscriptions. It's linear tv streamed over the internet instead of it being delivered to you by your cable provider.

It's used for many reasons, but I personally got a subscription at an IPTV provider to be able to offer my French girlfriend to keep watching her French TV channels while living in the Netherlands.

That said, my service does not offer IPTV, simply an editor to users who already have their own IPTV subscription.

The ones called IPTV are the ones with really questionable sources, in my experience. I'm not sure how the term IPTV became synonymous with that.

I'm surprised enough IPTV users would want to pay for a service like this, especially if IPTV is mostly pirated content (sorry if that's not an accurate description).

When you get a home internet access in France, it usually comes with phone and TV.

I guess IPTV was coined to adress TV via Internet, as opposed to over the air (we do not have cable here)

A lot of the services have some legality questions surrounding them, so may be best to avoid suggesting any service. Much like bittorrent itself isn't a piracy tool, it's often used for piracy; in the same vein, IPTV is entirely legal, but may violate copyright in some implementations.