"The maddening part of writing this blog entry is that we realize that there is no immediate win here for users."

And, unfortunately, there's likely to be a greater loss for Hulu and its "partners." Prior to Boxee, many people interested in watching recent TV shows on their televisions turned to BitTorrent, a reasonably painless (though ethically questionable) way to download high-quality versions of programs you managed to miss. With the advent of Boxee, it was pretty hard to manufacture reasons to not do the right thing. Hulu got the hits, you watched the ads, and everybody's happy.

With the rug pulled out from Boxee, how many will return to BitTorrent rather than be forced to sit in front of their computers to watch the latest episode of The Office? My guess is, more than a few. And that translates into fewer hits, fewer ads watched, and greater antipathy toward networks just when they finally seemed to be getting a clue.

And to finish up:

"For those Boxee users reading this post, we understand and appreciate that you're likely to tell us that we're nuts. Please know that we do share the same interests and won't stop innovating in support of the bigger mission."