There is some modularity there at least, I just got a fire tv for pretty cheap, but I never plan on letting it connect to the internet, instead I have a separate box which connects to my streaming apps. I feel like the situation with cara is worse.

On star and subscription services has been available for my whole life (35 years).

But there have always been alternatives without subscription services available. What would cause a change for alternatives to stop being available?

People seem to forget that competition in the way that we talk about when we talk about the free market only really occurs with people who want to upset the established order. When you have a group of long established manufacturers who, broadly speaking, are happy with how the land is divided up you start to see innovations like this one where it raises the profits for all firms. Because you don’t want to risk being a defector and creating a race to the bottom when you can all be fat and happy.