No kidding about Comcast - Streampix? Talk about derivative naming. And it's priced to kill Netflix at $5/mo for cable subscribers.
I'm not so sure about the pirating scene - while big content providers likely will never kill it, they seem to have lawmakers in their pockets, and so will criminalize it as much as possible - expect draconian measures to destroy the most dangerous threat to big content providers.
Just like the drug market with all its weird research chemicals that are technically legal, I'm pretty sure the piracy scene can move faster than draconian measures can take them down.
It's hard to compete with free. At the moment, Netflix does a pretty good job. HBO might too if they can fully disentangle from cable. If prices get higher, or the content individuals want gets spread across too many streaming services people will watch less and/or pirate more.
I'm not so sure about the pirating scene - while big content providers likely will never kill it, they seem to have lawmakers in their pockets, and so will criminalize it as much as possible - expect draconian measures to destroy the most dangerous threat to big content providers.