TV Everywhere is a bottleneck. Can it be bypassed?
As explained here [Channels — TV Everywhere], TV Everywhere mediates between content networks (e.g. CNN, History Channel), streaming content providers (e.g. Hulu, Sling TV), and stream consuming apps (e.g. Channels DVR). Depending on the streaming provider and their deals with networks, various TV channels may or may not be available via TV Everywhere. For example, Sling includes CNN and History Channel in their streaming service, but they don't support these channels' access via TV Everywhere so they are not available in Channels DVR.
My question is, why can't streaming content be captured as it arrives from the provider, instead of setting up a stream directly from the network to Channels DVR?
I can think of two kinds of reasons, technical and business.
Technical Reason: A streaming app runs on a player platform (Android, Windows, Apple) and communicates with the back-end service to fetch content streams and present them in viewers. Streaming apps are controlled by users through user interfaces like remotes, but in order to be controlled by other apps, a streaming app would have to provide an API. Something like Flixed (Does Sling TV have a Public API for Developers?) claims to provide an API for content listings, but the streaming services (e.g. Sling) would themselves have to provide an API for accessing content streams. Do they do so, and if not, why not?
Business Reason: Is it the case that networks restrict streaming providers from providing APIs so that they can retain greater control over where their content goes? Or is there just not enough demand for providers to give API access to their services?
I would appreciate if someone could spell this out. It would be better if TV Everywhere could be removed from the equation and we could get a purer version of using the Channels DVR to record whatever content we can manage to get into the house.