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Comment by thrownaway954 | Hacker News Reader

couldn't see that one coming /s

honestly... how was this even a thing? i never got the appeal or the concept to wanting to watch my own TV from a device. i mean... do people actually miss their local programming that much when they are away?

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It's somewhat common for ex-pats to have one of these devices hosted in their home country (at one of their places or at a friends) to watch some of the local programming (typically sports as most everything else can be found fairly easily online).

Exactly, for an expat the Slingbox was perfect (well, the idea was, the actual thing was buggy, but...). You had full control of the cable box, so you could still record shows, timeshift, watch on demand, etc. Plus it only cost about $100 with no monthly fees so it was better deal than "renting" multiple TV series.

I have an HD Homerun and Plex. I've used this setup numerous times to stream college football games that were broadcast OTA when I was away from home for one reason or another.

Yes? It was a fairly recent development that all sports leagues had games online, and even then it requires a fairly steep fee. Perhaps you want to watch local news or are used to seeing a program at a certain time. There's nothing wrong with the service, per se, but the fact that it leans on outside servers does set it up for this problem.

Many people have one in their home country to watch program you can’t find locally.

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