I'm not so sure about that. AppleTV and Roku boxes don't rely on a ridiculously expensive monthly subscriptions to be useful. The only damage to sales would be

I'm not so sure about that. AppleTV and Roku boxes don't rely on a ridiculously expensive monthly subscriptions to be useful. The only damage to sales would be the people who would have bought an AppleTV/Roku box and retain their cable subscription. A year's subscription to Netflix and a Roku or AppleTV are each just a little more expensive than a month of cable subscription, saving you a little less than 10 months of cable subscription fees. Google would have to add around $700/year worth of value to all these set top boxes to compete with that (not to mention having to play nice with the various cable companies and such).