Assessing the stagnant set-top box market

Tom Krazit of CNET has a good piece looking at the failure-to-launch of the Internet-connected set-top box sector. He focuses mainly on Apple TV (I wish there was more talk about others who've tried to bring Net-top boxes to market, like Akimbo, Vudu, TiVo, etc.)

Krazit writes:

With Apple TV, Apple fulfilled its usual goal of coming up with something sleek and quiet that people wouldn't necessarily mind putting in their living rooms, and the device seems relatively easy to set up and use.

But it doesn't come even close to fulfilling the promise of Internet-delivered video: the ability to watch anything I want, whenever I want it, without having to pay for all the useless channels I never watch. Nothing does yet, unfortunately, so I make do with the 250-plus channels I now get plus my digital video recorder.