What Does Roku's New Time Warner Cable App Mean For The Apple TV? | SplatF

Dan Frommer points out on SplatF that Time Warner Cable has an app for its own subscribers which allows you to stream TWC onto your TV for the cost of a Roku (about $50). He makes a couple of good observations:

It’s now technically plausible to watch hundreds of channels of TV using Internet Protocol (IP)…

It’s a Big Cable attitude change: Now permitting, not fighting, the idea of streaming TV channels to an actual TV.

But I think he misses the biggest point: how long will it be before competing cable providers begin offering their content to non-subscribers and what will the monopoly carrier be able to do about it? Currently, both Dish and DirecTV provide TV service into monopoly areas, so why couldn’t the cable companies do the same thing?