(Current Nexus Player + SonyTV + Shield TV Owner)
Bought into the SlingTV concept running on my Nexus Player (+SonyTV and later the Shield) and while it allowed me to "cut the cord" and keep the significant other HGTV'd, Bachelor/Bachelorette'd and it was clear from the start SlingTV itself had a long hill to climb to replace the simplicity, ease-of-use and reliability of a traditional Coax Cable STB. Meanwhile the AndroidTV experience - not the platform itself - still requires way too much investment of time & energy to the point it's hard to recommend beyond the techie crowd. Simply put, Live Channels is barren in functionality, the home screen is a complete mess and the lack of 3rd party enthusiasm from HBO, Netflix & Amazon to integrate into a seamless experience forces you to hop from one little in-app walled garden to the next.
Enter YouTube TV, by far and away the best experience I've had an OTT Live+DVR TV solution (SlingTV, HuluTV, WatchESPN, HDHomeRun). The UI is slick, well designed and +fast+; the viewing experience is light years better than anything I've else I've used...Which got me to wondering instead of a Pixel player, I could see a real opportunity for Google in the market w/ a YouTubeTV HDMI stick running AndroidTV. Even more so if they could strong arm HBO, NetFlix and the like to finally play nice w/content mgmt.
I cut the cord too, but I use PlayStation Vue on AndroidTV. The problem is nobody, including Google wants to use live channels.
I don't know why Google doesnt use their own live channels (or give a damn about AndroidTV), but 3rd party makes sense. They want their own walled garden, called their app.
Netflix, Hulu, Vue, Sling, etc will never want people outside their apps/websites. Again, would love everything in one, but that won't happen.
And a Google Stick, they sadly don't much care for their own AndroidTV OS and own Live Channels app.