Ask any TV executive about TV Everywhere, and you’re going to hear plenty of praise for the industry’s efforts to stream live and on-demand programming to pay TV subscribers. But if you keep them talking, you’re inevitably going to get a long laundry list of problems.

That’s because TV Everywhere has not only been plagued with technical and political challenges, it’s also arguably missed the mark on one of its key goals: Networks and pay TV operators started rolling out TV Everywhere services like HBO Go and Showtime Anytime to more effectively compete with internet-only services like Netflix. Recent numbers from Sandvine however show that HBO Go isn’t even coming close to Netflix’s engagement levels, with even niche offerings like the video game-focused streaming service Twitch.tv getting more traffic than HBO’s streaming service.

Still, TV Everywhere has been a success in an unlikely area: It has forced networks and operators to…