GTV, at least, seems to have a credible plan for spreading to new devices. LG and Sony are pushing out TVs with embedded GTV support, and the converter boxes, which used to be pricey, have gotten cheaper.
I'm firmly in the "I DO NOT want an integrated solution" camp. I simply do not ever want a GTV, Apple TV, Roku, or anything BUILT IN to a television set. It simply makes no sense. I've had the same TV for 6 years now, and in that time I've had at least 4 set top boxes attached to it because the product segment has advanced like crazy in that time. For example, the first Apple TV was released when I bought my TV. If that had been built in, today I wouldn't have the latest interface and I wouldn't have Airplay. I'm not picking on Apple there, either. I could make the same argument about any of these other set top boxes. I also plan to keep this TV for another 3 years at least.
While integration looks nice and is simpler to use for most end users, it has that one huge downside that makes no sense to me. You could argue that later on you could just add the latest box, but then I'm left with a kludgy system. I only want my TV to be a big, dumb monitor.
Much like AppleTV is/was a "hobby" for Apple, I see GTV as the same thing for Google. Give them a few years and it will get more serious.
The problem is that they don't have "a few years." Apple is getting more serious about the Apple TV, whether or not they release an actual set top box or even make content deals. They're already ahead of Google, and Google has completely stalled. I haven't received an update for my Google TV in ages, and while that may be Sony's fault, I haven't heard that I'm missing anything important. That, combined with the developers having apparently abandoned the platform, leads me to believe that GTV does not have a good future.
Heck, the biggest evidence I can think of is that I see no "Google Plusification" of Google TV.
What I'm surprised we haven't seen yet is any integration of GTV (or Boxee or whatever else) into a consumer home theater receiver. Those things have increasingly complex UI requirements, for which it would make sense to have GTV as a front-end rather than the traditional homebrew kludges. Also, I suspect there's a significant overlap between the crowd who says "I want decent audio, so I bought speakers and an amp" and the crowd who might be willing to deal with the quirkiness of GTV.
Aside from my earlier feelings about integration, I can think of an easy answer to this one: so few people buy receivers. I once asked an employee at a respectable home theater store in my area: how many people go with a complete home theater versus just using a TV for sound and component switching. He estimated a 50/50 split. Today, I wouldn't be surprised if even fewer people buy receivers.
I will agree, though, that the UIs on receivers has been absolute garbage for years. I have a fairly recent (2 years old) Denon receiver that can't even show the on-screen menu on digital outputs. Even when I'm using an analog connection, it's all white letters on black background, and has a terrible interface. But I've seen screenshots of recent receivers that look like they have really slick UIs. One looked almost like the PS3 interface.
But in the end, I think these companies are now all about targeting the largest market they can, and that means set top boxes and TVs.
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