This is just a little bit futurist of me, folks, but today we’re going to take a look at what might be a big new trend that’s been building for the last couple years now: the advent of internet as TV.

Some folks suggest that, within the next five years, fully seven percent of current pay TV subscribers (cable or dish) will overthrow their pay TV system for the internet, thus making the home theater PC not just an anomaly but rather a fully-featured system that replaces your cable box, your DVD player, your Blu-ray player and in some cases your game system as well.

The last two years have suggested that the move is being made–in fact, I actually know some people who are in the process of making the move–and most are satisfied with it.  The idea of reducing your bills by as much as a third and getting many more options (you don’t just get the TV on the internet, you get the internet too, and considering assertions that twenty hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, you get the basic principle) is appealing to a LOT of people, and in a bad economy like ours, oh, so very much more so.

So the grand march of progress continues, and it looks like pay TV might get run over in the process.