When was that ever "the deal" as opposed to "what you wanted to be the deal"? Cable used to be called CATV, for "Community Antenna TV" and was primarily a way to bring television programming into areas that were geographically un-served by TV, usually due to actual geological / topographic reasons. Places like Ithaca, NY, or Breckenridge, Colorado, where no way in hell is a TV signal from Syracuse or Denver is getting into them through the hills down into the valleys. Later, urban canyons like NYC where not everyone had the ability to put up any kind of outdoor antenna - not because of regulations as much as real estate realities, and indoor antennas suffered from horrible multipath. I've lived in all three of the places I mentioned, laughably tried to get OTA TV in them, and have been a cable subscriber in all of them at one point or another. Getting "content" without commercials was never the deal - it was getting content, at all.

Later, the idea of "cable channels" started taking off, and what we now think of as the "basic tier" of cable stations began to show up. Watching "USA Night Flight" back in the day, then the launch of MTV with actual music videos. Along with the "Arts and Entertainment Network" that had plays, classical concerts, opera, not dysfunctional yahoos. Whether or not these extra stations had commercials, there was never any "deal" that "your cable bill pays for the content", CATV was a distribution method. Then the "pay tv" channels like HBO became popular. You can't pay for HBO without paying first for the "CATV" distribution subscription. In 2014 that's a dumb idea, but back then it wasn't - you were paying for the pipe, and now that you had the pipe, you could also pay for premium content. Given that "pay tv" is either "pay by having commercials" or "pay by having a CONTENT fee", I don't see a difference.

Your strawman argument against cable is flawed. You never understood the deal. You weren't paying for the pizza, you were paying for the delivery of the pizza.

How'd that "enforced separation" work out with Network Rail and the train services that replaced British Railways?

Comment is full of wrong.

Time Warner has not owned Time Warner Cable for several years. Time Warner is some ongoing licensing royalty from the "Roadrunner" intellectual property "beep beep", but otherwise they have no connection at all. Next month it will be 5 years since TWC was fully independent of Time Warner. Try to keep up.

In fact, "Time" likely won't be part of Time Warner before long either, in that they're looking to spin off that group. But the Cable Company is already long gone away from Time Warner (oh, and AOL isn't part of it either, in case you're still confused). Thus TWC, which Comcast wants to buy, does not own any cable program networks at all. No CNN, no TBS, no Cartoon Network, no HBO. That's all part of the "Warner" part of "Time Warner", not any part of the cable company.

You're equally ignorant about the scope of Comcast's fully-owned NBC Universal, which is ridiculously larger than "NBC/NHL/MLB". I assume that you meant NHL Network and MLB Network, not the actual sports leagues. MLB network is only partly-owned by NBC Universal's NBC Sports Group; Time Warner Cable (OK, that's Comcast too if this goes through), DirecTV, Cox Communications are the other minority owners, while Major League Baseball itself is the majority owner. NBC owns 5.44% per Wikipedia. On NHL Network (USA), NBC is the only minority owner, but has just 15.6% with the National Hockey League owning the rest.

Meanwhile you ignore: USA Network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, NBC Sports Channel (formerly Universal Sports), Oxygen, E!, SyFy, Esquire Network, UniversalHD, and a bunch more networks that are both on -2, -3, etc. OTA digital subchannels and on cable like Chiller, Cloo, Sprout, etc. That's just the NBC Universal Cable Group. Don't forget all the OnO (Owned and Operated) NBC TV stations - far fewer than the overall NBC broadcast network total affiliates, but the big-market ones like LA, SF, NYC, and many more are owned by NBC itself. Which means owned by Comcast.

Plus, Universal Studios.

Oh, and Jay Leno just left NBC. Yes, again. Try to keep up.

Even more wrong, with your: "the fight has... been with... Viacom..." in that the big recurrent CBS fights are with CBS, which is way more than CBS old-people-TV network. Viacom and CBS split apart years ago, which means all those "Viacom" TV networks and properties? They belong to CBS (which also owns CNET, ZDNET and lots of online properties too). In fact, CBS now owns "Star Trek". Which is why my paragraph-opener sentence should be read Shatnerized. Yes, the network that turned down Star Trek in the 1960s, saying "We have one of our own we like better - Lost in Space", now is the owner of the "Star Trek" intellectual property. Paramount, which is part of Viacom, has absolutely nothing to do with "Star Trek" other than having some remaining rights to it as a motion-picture-only property. Many of those "Viacom" channels you're thinking about? They're now CBS. Such as the "Showtime Networks" group of channels. The MTV Group is still Viacom.

You really need to follow what is actually happening rather than that outdated Facebook "meme" infographic of "These Six Companies Own All Our Media".

Your plan is flawed. Sure, you have three accounts but your comment "If your bank doesn't make this easy to manage, switch banks" implies they are all at the same bank. Which subjects you to many other risks you're likely ignoring:

1. Person with stolen card may be able to social-engineer access to other accounts or online credentials and thus access the other accounts.
2. Your bank may choose to do a "courtesy overdraft transfer" from you other account, to cover thief's new laptop and vacation.
3. An "unusual transaction" on the one account, if unusual enough, may trigger the bank's fraud-bots to put a freeze on all your accounts, at least temporarily. Some stupid institutions do "freeze everything, no messages" as an attention-getting attempt at reaching you, and no, they don't disclose up front that they do that, so you can't "switch banks" based on looking out for that stupidity.
4. Some dispute with a big-enough jerk person, company, or organization may lead to a lawsuit or garnishment against you, and nowadays many banks have an immediate "fire the customer" response to that action. Again, not something they disclose up front. Condo Board (HOA) from Hell got me fired as a customer from a "good local bank". Luckily it wasn't my only bank/bank-alternative.

A much better idea, if you want segregation of accounts between physical world use, online use, and billpay use, is to use three different institutions entirely, picking carefully both for minimal Banksterism and for free external transfer services.

For example, I have (US-centric because that's the topic):
1. A Credit Union membership, in an institution that pays 4% interest (yes, four percent I didn't drop zeros or decimals) on the first $500 in checking and separately on the first $500 in savings. Has totally free 2-3 day ACH "push" to transfer money to any other bank or bank-like-thing (such as a prepaid debit card with a "bank account number" and "routing number" or to "pull" from any other bank-like account. Only if I initiate it. Overnight for a $2 fee. Both checking and savings there to maximize interest, have their Debit MasterCard, have their Bill-Pay but have no current payees set up, deliberately do not have any actual paper checks and never have on this account.

2. A "checking alternative" account with no minimum deposit, no minimum balance requirement, from an online discount brokerage firm (I don't have an investment account with them, just this cash management account.) Has a Visa debit card no added fees for foreign transactions over the Visa conversion fee, full rebate of any ATM-owner surcharge anywhere in the world, deposited back next banking day, no ATM-use fees of their own. Has free printed checks and free check refills. Has free BillPay, free external transfers by ACH. Pushes to my other bank-like institutions typically arrive next banking day despite their saying it is 2 days. Pulls from other accounts usually 2 days.

3. A high-interest (as US interests rates go) online-only savings account with no checking, no bill-pay, no nothing but can be the ACH target for direct deposit from Elance, PayPal, etc. for freelance work, is a transfer source and target for accounts 1) and 2) at those other institutions, has its own ACH external transfer capabilities (typically 2-3 days on pushes, out, a couple more days for funds availability on pulls into it - so I usually push from the other accounts which makes it instantly available when it gets there). Also tied to an online purchases rebates cashback program (Upromise.com - oriented towards savings for students but anybody can use it and get the cashback rebates, no matter what form of payment used, into their Upromise account and then transferred into this bank account.)

An action by an adversary (legal or illegal) against account 1) cannot cut off my access to accounts 2) or 3) directly. Access to the Debit MasterCard / Visa Debit of accounts 1) or 2) cannot access account 3 at all. Account 3) can push to a prepaid Visa from an entirely separate institution if I want to do spending in the real or online world that needs a card, with good funds on that card in 2 days.

Much safer. I'm obscured here, not anonymously nym'ed here anymore, and I've mentioned these in fully-disclosed locations like G+ previously, so I'll say what I have:

Account 1) BECU credit union in Washington State ("Boeing Employees Credit Union"). Anybody who lives in WA, works in WA, "worships in" WA or is a near relative of anybody who does or did, can join, and then keep the membership relationship after leaving. I think if you've just changed planes in Seattle-Tacoma International and stayed long enough to get Ivar's Clams, you're probably eligible. becu.org. Can mail or scan paper checks.

Account 2) Fidelity Investments Cash Management Account (used to be called "My smartCash" and is nothing like the "Cash Management Account" concept of a unified investment+cash single-account that the big wirehouses like Merrill use that name for.) fidelity.com, look for the Cash Management Account thing. Some of the other online brokerages also have similar accounts with comparable benefits, so check Schwab, etrade, etc. Obviously they are hoping to create a wider account relationship but other than the home page promoting other products, Fidelity does nothing in-your-face to get you to open other accounts beyond this way-better-than-bank-checking account. Only thing you can't do is deal in cash. If there's a Fidelity branch nearby you can deposit checks in person. Otherwise can mail or scan. There may be balance minimums to be able to scan checks.

Account 3) Sallie Mae Bank Upromise-linked High Yield Savings. banking.salliemae.com and upromise.com. You don't need to have a student, you don't need to set up a 529 plan.

If you don't want anything to do with any part of Wall Street (even its distant Boston relation which doesn't do its own underwriting or create its own deriviatives for the most part), then you won't want any type of account like Account 2. But I consider that self-defeating nose-cutting face-spiting. You can opt-out of the FDIC banks to which Fidelity sweeps your balance, getting rid of the worst of the banksters, using the less-evil smaller and regional banks on the "Program Bank List".

If you don't want anything to do with a bailed-out government-sponsored-enterprise (GSE) like Sallie Mae (or like Ally Bank as another example) then you won't want anything to do with Account 3. But again, why not take advantage. And however rapacious Sallie Mae may be, to at least some extent your deposit is helping provide student loan money. Meanwhile you're getting rebates from Lenovo, Dell, Newegg, Expedia, cheap hotel chains, and lots more, and every time $10 accrues, it sweeps into your Sallie Mae bank account.

I don't do the exact same type of account segregation as the AC to whom I'm replying. But I do some logical segregation and optimization. Funds sitting for a while, into Account 3) where they get almost a percent of interest in an account that there is no way out of that isn't directed, online, by me. No checks, no card, not even a checking account number. If I'm feeling at all flush in these transitional years between end-of-corporate-career (not by choice, by Banksterism) and early-social-security, and have an >4-figure balance, I pack Account 1) BECU with a full $1000 (considering the two accounts, savings and checking with 4% interest on $500 in each, as sub-accounts of one mental-aggregate-account). I move money in and out of Account 1) Fidelity with planning based on what I need to withdraw for free via their best-to-use ATM/Visa Debit. PayPal/Elance payments go into either 2 or 3. No frak-up in or about any one of those institutions can screw me over in the other two. The rare US billpays I need to do, I usually would do from one of the two bill-pay enabled accounts, and I wouldn't put all payees in one account, again for distribution of risk.

Three accounts, at the same place, give none of these benefits.

It's everything that isn't Kindle. Including the Nook, Sony, Kobo, iRiver. Everything.

It's not just PDF, nor even primarily PDF. It's reflowable standard EPUB. EPUB with Adobe DRM is the standard commercial ebook format for the "rest of the world that isn't Amazon". Barnes & Noble Nook (now mostly Microsoft Nook). Kobo, which is number 2 in much of the world. Google Play Books. eReaders from Kobo, B&N, iRiver, white-box Chinese brands affordable in emerging markets, even iBooks own Appleized format, have Adobe DRM inside. eReading apps from third parties like the well-respected Aldiko Reader and Bluefire reader use Adobe DRM. Only Kindle doesn't use it.

I've got Google Play Books and Kobo books on my Nook Color early-gen ereading tablet, because of Adobe DRM being near-universal. Have Google Play books on my Kobo WiFi e-ink eReader and on my newer Kobo AuraHD e-ink eReader. On my Android phone, whitebox cheap 10" tablet, and Kobo Arc (Android tablet with Kobo's shell but full open Google Play Store Jellybean tablet), I have the Aldiko app so that I can combine my Kobo and my Google Play books into a single library rather than reading in separate apps per bookstore. (Nooks can sideload and read standard EPUB/AdobeDRM but Nook books can't be read outside of Nook hardware or apps due to B&N weird variant AdobeDRM).

Adobe is breaking all this relatively open ecosystem. Sure, it's DRM, but it's an "anything except Kindle" open system. Adobe is screwing over all the people who bought into the non-Kindle commercial ebook ecosystem over the past half-decade or so.

I'm writing from the perspective of a normal human, not a /. geek. Normals don't break DRM because they don't know how, they don't even know it's a thing. They don't buy only non-DRM books, because they want to buy books from their favorite authors, not obscure corners of the web. Even many self-published books, if distributed through "normal channels" carry Adobe DRM (or Amazon DRM). They might, if they read the very simple info on the Kobo, Google Play, and other ecosystem-member web pages, have realized they can buy a book from Google and read it on their Sony eReader, buy a book from Kobo on sale and read it on their original Nook or Nook front-light newer e-ink reader. They may be all over Goodreads and ereader websites where there are lots of how-tos about just that, but they are nowhere near Slashdot. Nor near Linux. And O'Reilly tech books are irrelevant. As are, to most readers, Baen and Tor SF.

Hell, I don't want to deal with this myself, and I know how or can easily figure it out. Just going to the "Download Adobe DRM" link at Kobo or Google Play, getting the .ACSM (Adobe Content Server Mechanism) license file, double-clicking on the download and having previously-installed Adobe Digital Editions get the DRM-unlocked-to-my-ID content was simple. Bang, read it on my PC in Adobe Digital Editions, or tether my Android phone/tablet to drag into Aldiko or Bluefire, tether my Kobo eReaders (e-ink actual ereaders for readers) and drag it into their libraries, tether the Nook Color and drag it into its library.

Now I'd' have to go break DRM on all those files and future purchases. But that would be wrong...

I like your pricing idea. Add to it a bulk-hours discount rate for purchasing viewing time above a threshold amount, and it would be near-perfect. If all the content was readily available.

I wish news/opinion organizations would do that too, instead of everybody and their dog putting up their own paywall. I'm not going to purchase separate subscriptions to the NY Times, Boston Globe, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Time, and every podunk paper. But I might want to read more than their monthly free-with-registration allowances on any given month. More, but not enough from any one of them to make an individual subscription to that particular site worthwhile, and the full set of full-pop subs is unaffordable. But if I could pay a reasonable "News / Opinion Consortium" subscription that gave me maybe 120 article views a month to any mix of their several dozen participating properties, for maybe $15-20/mo, I'd be all over it.

I recognize the irony. For each of our pricing ideas, there would need to be an organization somewhat like MPAA/RIAA, and mine for news requires something like a "Pay Cable Tiered Package" concept but mashed-up with a paywall meter for total "News Tier" usage.

But if the pricing were reasonable rather than rapacious, I think it would work.

Wasn't this pretty much exactly what Microsoft's "Media Center PC" concept was, way back in 2003? Granted, the tech evolved, both on the PC side and the cable TV side.

Originally, Media Center PCs were sold as specific hardware/software packages, it wasn't a separate version of Windows XP available as software only. By the time Vista rolled around and then Win7, the software was built into Home Premium and Professional versions, and of course Ultimate. They took it out of Windows 8 because nobody much used it anymore, but it's still available as a cheap upgrade to Windows 8.x. It came free in my late-2012 Windows 8 Pro-pack upgrade when the were discounting Windows 8 Pro upgrade from Windows 8, with Media Center thrown in.

The Windows Media Center PCs back in the XP days came with a remote control, guaranteed compatible analog tuner, a great software interface, and a two-box-capable remote blaster. As Media Center evolved, multiple tuners, HDTV tuners, and ClearQAM got added.

The product you're asking for exists. Or existed, as a mainstream, biggest-names-branded product. From Microsoft and HP, or Dell, and other PC OEMs.

It just didn't sell. It worked great, for its time. My HP Media Center 2003-era Pentium IV PC pretty much replaced my 1999-era ReplayTV DVR. Neither had a subscription charge.

Time Warner has not owned Time Warner Cable for several years. Other than whatever royalty deal Time Warner has with Time Warner Cable to allow them to continue using the "Time Warner" name and the "Road Runner" IP, they have nothing to do with each other - except that Time Warner Cable is one of the independent TV distribution systems that Time Warner want to get paid by for having it distribute the various cable tv networks of Time Warner's Turner and other cable TV divisions - channels like HBO, Cartoon Network, CNN, Turner Classic Movies, etc.

Your "owns a lot of cable stations" is inaccurate and ambiguous? Do you mean, "owns a lot of cable systems"? If so, you're wrong, as I've explained. Time Warner does not own cable systems at all anymore, the entity called Time Warner Cable is an unrelated company.

Do you mean, "owns a lot of cable networks"? In which case, yes, HBO's owner owns quite a few other cable networks.

Your argument either works or is totally invalid, depending on what you mean. There is no such thing as a "cable station". CNN is a "cable network" owned by Time Warner, "Time Warner Cable of North Carolina" is a cable system owned by Time Warner Cable. The interests of Time Warner vs Time Warner Cable are not aligned.

HBO Go becoming independent, in terms of subscription availability, from having to also have HBO-the-cable-network subscription, might be a net positive for Time Warner the owner of HBO. It might be a negative to Time Warner Cable, because it would remove an "upsell package" opportunity of bundled or special deal premium network sales at huge markups. It would just be more bits, like Netflix or Amazon or Hulu.

But it might be a net positive for Time Warner Cable, and for Charter Cable, Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-Verse, CenturyLink DSL, as providers of high-speed broadband internet (ok, allegedly high-speed allegedly broadband allegedly internet, really minimal speed barely-broadband walled-garden). It might encourage more people to get high speed internet and to upgrade the speed and or monthly total data transfer allowances, because now Game of Thrones without TV.

I believe it would be the latter. But I believe that the cable system executives believe it would be the former, at least the ones that are originally/primarily cable-tv systems that then added data. I have no idea what the cable network and broadcast network executives feel about it.

Personally, I'd like every entertainment series available unbundled, released on the "broadcasting network" servers on a specific schedule, but available continuously after that "street date"/"air date". I'd like to be able to get Sleepy Hollow without having to get American Idol. I'd like to be able to get that Fox Network series without having to get a Chthulu Plus subscription. But if I found I liked enough series that were on Hulu, as one of their options, and that a Hulu Plus subscription was the most economical way to get them, then I'd like that option. If I instead only wanted to buy one series, I'd like the price to be very low, and I'd like it available simultaneous with "home network" air date and time. If it's on ABC broadcast network Tuesday at 8pm EST, I want to be able to start streaming it at 8pm EST that same Tuesday. Even if I'm in the Pacific Time Zone. Or in the Uruguayan Time Zone and IP block. (which I am).

Oh, and a pony.

But note I never said I wanted it to be totally free-as-in-beer. Well maybe the pony.

I'm not sure it's even possible to be a "lapsed Unitarian". Considering that there are UU-Pagan, UU-Taoist, UU-Jew, UU-Humanist, UU-Buddhist, UU-Hindu, UU-Confucian, UU-Animist, UU-Islam "fellowships" within the Unitarian-Universalist Society, there probably is a UU-Lapsed-UU official group too.

Which makes you (and me) still Unitarians!

But I still had MacOS9 running until late last year, on a purple-bubble iMac, with Windows 98 on it via pre-MSFT-VirtualPC, so I'm a heretical one.

I live in Uruguay and don't have any Bitcoin, you insensitive clod!

You don't have to unblock Facebook to use most comment sections. More of the major new sites are using either Disqus or a site-specific instance of LiveFyre than are using Facebook Comments as their enhanced commenting platform. USA Today is probably the biggest site using Facebook Comments. A lot of local news stations and small-town papers have moved to Facebook Comments. Lots of blogs and special interest websites now use Disqus to get into that cross-web "discoverability" of their sites by being on the same comment platform as CNN, The Atlantic, etc. Some sites still use Intense Debate, though it's dropped off bigtime. Wonkette probably the biggest political commentary site still using it, some blogs, some small news sites. (Intense Debate had the "early mover disadvantage" - LiveFyre and Disqus are just much better.)

Even for the Facebook Comments-powered sites, you don't have to unblock Facebook globally, if you use the right tool.

Problem: You don't want to be tracked by Facebook all over creation, but you do want to be able to comment on the majority of sites. Including, if they use Facebook comments, those sites.

Solution: Use Ghostery (and I'm specifically recommending Ghostery, not alternatives like Disconnect; I explain why further in) with its fine granularity of global and site-specific blocking.
1. Turn off GhostRank, so you're not telling Evidon (Ghostery) who you're going to. It's off by default so they're being good guys.
2. Turn on auto-update and auto-block new elements.
3. Block everything. (It's just easier to start from blocking everything. 3 after 2 because sometimes first-use leaves stuff unblocked)
4. If you're a regular commenter and comment reader at major sites, unblock the "3pes" (Third Party Tracking Elements) for:
      Disqus
      LiveFyre
      Intense Debate
      If using the Firefox version of Ghostery, there's a Cookie tab. Repeat steps 3 and 4 on the Cookie tab.
      Disqus and Intense Debate have cookies on their list, too, LiveFyre currently does not.)
5. Save (one save covers all the tab settings you've jumped between.)

Do not unblock Facebook or anything with Facebook in it here at the global level. You don't want Facebook knowing every site you've been at that has a Like or Follow button or a Facebook Social Reader app, just the ones you intend to actually read Facebook-powered comments at.

The last several versions of Ghostery for Firefox, and the most recent version for Chrome finally, have per-site per-tracker disabling. So go to the site where you can't see the comments. Click the Ghostery toolbar icon to see the list of trackers blocked. Don't whitelist the whole site. Next to each active tracker, Ghostery has a slide switch. You can unblock Facebook Connect or Facebook Social Graph or whatever you need, just for that site, then reload.

It may well turn iterative. For Facebook comments it certainly will. On USA Today, for example, if you click the little dialog bubble icon on the left panel from the story (which is their comment icon), Ghostery will increment by at least one more tracker, USAtoday didn't load the FB stuff till then. Unblock that and reload, you still won't get the comments. By unblocking Facebook Connect, now it could load Facebook Social Plugins. Now unblock that. Rinse and repeat.

I'm a pretty avid Disqus commenter and have it on all my and my clients' sites, so I leave it unblocked globally. But you could do the same with that, if you only want it to work at certain sites and don't want it knowing you're there at other Disqus-powered sites.

One thing I've found on a lot of sites - even with Disqus (or LiveFyre) unblocked, the site's JavaScript that in turn triggers the Disqus or LiveFyre plugin, won't fire unless you unblock something else. And sometimes that "something else" isn't particularly "safe" for folks who don't want any adverts or cross-web trackers. Omniture from Adobe's advertising/tracking is a common culprit here, on a lot of sites. So is Optimizely, and Outbrain, those folks who bring you those often-inane and frequently-ancient "Other sites you may like" things at the bottom of articles.

In some cases it may just be sloppy design or bad coding. But it happens enough, and requires enough iterations of "now unblock THAT tracker" on some sites, that I suspect it is privacy-tools-savvy design decisions specifically to thwart people using privacy tools, to force us into unblocking everything in order to get to the comments. (I'm looking at you, Salon.com).

Shouldn't need to be explained, but just in case: You of course have to stop using EasyPrivacy or Fanboy's Social Annoyances or any other list in Adblock Edge (good), Adblock Plus (now evil) or AdBlock for Chrome (good), because that has no per-site per-tracker granularity. Discontinue using your adblocker as your privacy blocker and go back to the basic EasyList (or other list of choice) block list targeting only adverts, not trackers and social. Same thing if you're using a customized hosts file. Don't do that. You have a better tool once you install one of the privacy blocking extension.

Ghostery for IE does exist but doesn't have most of the flexibility of Ghostery for Chrome or Firefox. Plus, IE. I suspect no one here is using it for their own routine browsing, only for special cases or client projects validation. Disconnect is pretty nice, easier to set up than Ghostery (not that that's hard), but doesn't have quite as much per-site granularity. Until the recent Chrome version of Ghostery came out with the same per-site per-tracker controls as the Firefox version, I did prefer Disconnect for Chrome over Ghostery, but no longer.

BlueHell Firewall (misleading term "firewall") for Firefox Mobile is better than a stick in the eye if running/attempting to run Firefox Mobile on a lower-resource Android device. Doesn't have any granular control, just on or off. But it does let you run mobile Firefox with a privacy tracker on phones or tablets that can run Firefox but cramp up and die when you add a heavy extension like Ghostery. If you've got enough processor and memory to run mobile Firefox well, you can use Ghostery successfully, in my experience.

Same thing I said to the iPad guy. Being able to install new ROMs matters exactly why, to this use case?

No, OP's dad isn't going to give a crap about cyanogen mod. Nor about any of the other "latest and greatest" that Android fanboyz and iFans each seem to thing is so important as you rush down to give the retailers more money every few months, and then root/jailbreak/mod the shiny you just bought.

Everyone is not you.

And updates and patches matter in this use case, exactly why? Elderly person wanting to send some emails, browse some sites. Not needing nor wanting nor likely even aware of "latest and greatest"?

Get out of your own headspace and into that of the person using it.

Unless OP's father's memories of "like I used to use" were being stuck in AOL's or Prodigy's walled gardens, why would anybody recommend a "married to Jeff Bezos" Kindle Fire tablet?

Crippled Android fork of a very old version, no access to Google Play or other app stores, nor sideloading (you rooters go away, we're talking about normals here).

If you must recommend a bookstore-based Android-derived tablet, a Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet or, my choice which I own, a Kobo Arc family tablet, are now essentially open Android. Sure, they have their own launchers, own look-and-feel, and work auto-magically with their own bookstores. But they have full access to Google Play right out of the box. I love my Kobo Arc tablet - Android Jellybean, open access to sideloading, other than Kobo's home screen it looks and feels mostly like Android. My Kobo is my Nook eReader, my Google Play Books eReader, my general-EPUB Aldiko eReader, and one of my Kindle eReaders.

A Kindle Fire is a Kindle eReader. Other competing book apps are blocked. Same with many other competing content marketplaces and apps.