Thinking Outside the Set-Top Box

It has been more than a generation since Americans had to rent their rotary telephones from Ma Bell. (Kids, ask your grandparents to explain what a rotary telephone was.) A version of that antiquated system is still in place; it has just shifted from the phone company to cable- and satellite-television services.

The vast majority of Americans still pay for TV service, which means they rent a set-top box that they hate. The average American household spends about $231 a year to lease those boxes from their cable, satellite or telecom TV provider. That's a whopping $19.5 billion in total, according to surveys conducted by two U.S. senators. Now that more people are dropping or never buying video service from one of the Big Cable companies, it’s time to set the set-top albatross free.