For a moment, it seemed like the streaming apps were the things that could save us from the hegemony of cable TV—a system where you had to pay for a ton of stuff you didn’t want to watch so you could see the handful of things you were actually interested in.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/K4EIh
For my household, the price will always be lower than local cable and there is always something to watch! For free live tv, we use a HDhomerun and tv antenna.
We have MythTV and a 4 channel HD Grabber card. Similar concept. Works great if you have good TV reception and a lot of channels.