I just made a throwaway reference to Bill Gates' claim that TV will be irrelevant in five years, but I find myself wondering about what exactly we're going to see replace it.

Me, my own TV consumption patterns have changed due to TiVo in the same way that my weblog consumption patterns have changed due to RSS. It's possible to see a TiVo as an RSS reader for the web – you 'subscribe' to your favorite shows, instead of 'browsing' from channel to channel.

I don't care if the TV show I'm subscribing to is on NBC, Sci-Fi, or Bravo (especially since they're all owned by the same company). TiVo has already demonstrated the ability to suck down webcasts with Rocketboom. It's entirely possible to imagine content delivered through [webcasts/netcasts/podcasts/whatever] alongside regular network distribution completely transparently. As long as the content is of similar quality, IPTV facilitates the circumvention of the traditional network system and all the ridiculous overhead costs inherent therein.

There, in a nutshell, is why IPTV fascinates me. Plenty more of this to come, I'm sure.