So... do you know legos?

Know how they come in a whole bunch of qualities, from Mindstorms to Technic to the themed stuff down to Duplo?

You and I, we can pick up a Lego Technic set, follow the instructions and end up with a race car with moving pistons. The steering works. The tires are rubber. it's dope. All we had to do was follow the instructions and we figured it out. In fact, we could probably put something together that wouldn't exactly be a race car, but it would have moving parts and be awesome.

On the other hand, your aunt Mary isn't particularly interested in building race cars. In fact, she isn't much in the mood to build anything. If she wants a dollhouse, she'll buy a dollhouse. No need to build or customize one, thanks. She's not particularly interested in Duplo... but if it'll save her some money, she'll build a house out of Duplo.

Check out the instructions for making a Roku work. Or an Apple TV. It's a little bit above Duplo-grade. They know that nerds will figure the shit out immediately, but they're not interested in selling to nerds. They're interested in selling to people willing to build a dollhouse out of Duplo.

Now check out the instructions for getting XBMC up and running. It's closer to Lego Technic. Yeah, any fool can do it (I have, and I hit it with my Roku) but they don't. It's a level of technical tweaking that nobody but nerds are interested in.

Keep in mind - the overwhelming majority of the internet-browsing audience doesn't know how to leave a youtube comment, let alone configure XBMC. It's not that they can't - it's that they don't want to. For them, they'd rather pay Netflix $7 a month and stream on their phones. It takes not a lot to set up and they're good to go.

So "ease of arrangement" is one thing, but "bone-stupid and simple" is where it needs to be for mass adoption. Like I said, Slingboxes have allowed people to do this for pushing eight years now, and it just hasn't mattered. Their marketshare remains teensy. I've got friends that program arduino to make their jobs easier and I know one person who has bothered with Sling. She gave it up in 2008.