So FiOS officially giving a drop dead date for the STBs, I believe this one will be real and my 3 cable cards (1 Tivo Bolt and 2 HDHR Primes) will stop working. My plan is to demand comparable facilities at the essentially the same price. The HDHRs power Channels DVR which I use on 7 TVs spread around the house plus via remote when we're traveling, and the TiVo with its 3 Minis spread around the house. I pay for the Extreme HD package plus the 3 cable cards and the mandatory STB, which I don't use. I priced out the equipment FiOS will require to come close to replicating the access - STB or mini-STB for each TV, DVR service, the app add-on to be able to watch away from home, and it came to well over twice what I'm paying now, and apparently there's no downloading from their DVR except maybe if I real-time playback into a recording device.
YouTube TV seems likely for us when VZ laughs me off the phone line (but I'll ask anyway). Honestly the future of 'linear' TV or whatever we call the non-streamed tv network offerings, seems very dim to me especially if the FCC uses its licensing authority to exert a political ideology onto broadcast. Streaming is the future, sorry to say for the people who can't get or afford it. The Sinclairs and Nexstars and their ilk are working on making retransmission fees to "cable" providers the equal of subscribing to their apps, and making OTA Nextgen (ATSC 3) so they can charge for OTA. We watch so little network TV now anyway, it won't be much of a loss for us.