It's likely because Hollywood won't LET them "offer legitimate ways to purchase the content".
There's a device that will allow normal people to watch new theater movies at home, but it's $500 per viewing after buying the highly-secured $35000 Prima video server. There are also a bunch of requirements that the company checks in person before allowing someone to buy into the service.
Fair enough. What about older movies that are available from Netflix or Amazon, iTunes, etc? Popcorn time could at least provide some links for purchasing the media.
I don't watch a lot of films/TV series, so I would totally pay to watch a single TV episode/film. But I'm on Linux, and I don't know how to do that with iTunes, or if it's even possible. Hulu and Netflix require a subscription, which gets way too expensive because I don't watch a lot of stuff, and when trying to purchase an episode on Amazon I'm greeted with the following:
> We could not process your order because of geographical restrictions on the product which you were attempting to purchase. Please refer to the terms of use for this product to determine the geographical restrictions.
I simply can't find any site that lets me pay to download a movie/TV show episode, so I usually turn to Pirate Bay.
That doesn't look that bad. Now if it had a personalizable lists with information when what show (that's still running) airs, it would be better. Sadly I still haven't found anything better than ezTV and I don't even use their torrent links…
For an honest TV index with multiple streaming sources, check out http://episodeslist.com
It's updated daily.