I agree, if money is no object. But a lot of people can afford either a gaming PC or a console. So they have to choose either the thing that does "console" things best or the thing that does "PC gaming" things best, not both.

On the other hand, certain console games just don't work in a PC setup yet. For a fighting game or a cooperative platformer, sure you can plug four Xbox 360 controllers or HID joysticks into a USB hub, but it's hard to gather four people around one desktop or laptop monitor. Steam's Big Picture Mode is a step toward that, but Valve doesn't yet have an affordable, attractive, pre-made box designed to sit next to a TV. Come December, it'll be Xbox One, Steam box zero.

If each provider wants to package its own channels, then why can't people subscribe to, say, just the Turner package (TBS, TNT, TCM, CNN, HLN, Cartoon Network) or just the Disney package (ABC Family, Disney, Disney Junior, ESPN, ESPN2)?

And then proceed to make exclusive contracts with cable networks that result in games being blacked out on the streaming apps.

Especially when you get past the sermon on humankind's futility in "Ecclesiastes" and hit the fifty shades of grey that are "Song of Solomon".

YouTube's customers are its advertisers. If an application offers ad-free access to YouTube, the paying customers (that is, the advertisers) are right to feel screwed.

Option (b) won't work for parents or college underclassmen in a 21-to-enter state, unless by "bar" you mean something like Buffalo Wild Wings.

Cable is far cheaper per year than season tickets for you and junior to two sports. Attending games in person is also impractical for people who follow an out-of-market team, such as fans who moved away from their favorite team, fans of the team associated with the university that a family member attends, and fans whose favorite player got traded to another team.

It probably isn't available. If it's shown OTA or on a national or regional sports network in your area, it's blacked out online.

That depends on how many other people at Buffalo Wild Wings want to watch the same game that you and junior want to watch, and restaurant food is still more expensive than home-cooked food. Or if by "venues" you mean a neighbor's house, that eventually gets ruled out as well.

Live, or delayed a day and requiring user interaction after each clip?

In 2012 and 2013, some games in the NHL Stanley Cup series were shown on Versus (now NBCSN). That's the finals of professional ice hockey, as if the second half of the Super Bowl were on ESPN. The head of one of the households in my extended family is a fan of NFL, NHL, and UFC, and he told me that should money become tight, he'd rather take himself and others in his household back to dial-up than cut off his sports telecasts.

When the cheese moves, PwC's clients need to know when, where, and how to move with it. Businesses that do not move with the cheese don't stay in business very long.

But that'd still be complaining. Rather, you can consider making your own content, with blackjack and hookers.

Only "first" in the sense of failed attempts to get the earliest post on a Slashdot story. Ringworld was first published in 1970. The Story of Doctor Dolittle was first published in 1920. Other examples are older.

Can you buy a season of, say, Monday Night Football or The Rachel Maddow Show for that much?