Sigh. I sort of figured it’d come to this. With studios shutting down websites and services left and right, it’s obvious who’s calling the shots. So to survive and potentially reach the mainstream, it appears Boxee is going legit. And many of the cool things we’ve enjoyed in the Boxee Mac and PC experience will be going away. At least in regards to the now shipping D-Link Boxee Box ($200). CEO Avner Ronen spelled out some of the details at the launch event yesterday…
We’re gonna work really hard really soon to make Hulu Plus ($10/mo) available, and do it in a way that makes sense. No hacky stuff.
And regarding Boxee as an app platform:
Assuming it doesn’t download torrents or give you the wrong weather, we’ll post it.
Here’s what I had to say on this topic a few weeks ago:
Given the market, I’d say they should keep and exploit their geek cred by bypassing/ignoring the system. Of course, they’ll burn bridges by doing so and could make themselves targets of unpleasant threats or legal action. And, again, I wonder how their hardware partner(s) play into the equation. If Boxee goes legit, they’re just one box among many second and third input app providers (who happen to cost about twice as much as Apple TV, WDTV, and Roku).