(Image Source: HBO )     BY JEREMY TRUITT    What could possibly be more convenient than having Hulu and Netflix to replace your cable bill? Well....how about standalone HBO...without a cable contract?  That’s right, HBO’s CEO Richard Plepler recently hinted at that very idea.   “The most important thing for us is creating content that is addictive. So what we want to do with HBO Go is give people as much optionality as we can so they can watch it on their Kindle, they can watch it on their Playstation, iPad, Android.” (via TechCrunch )   That may sound a little vague to you, so technically the best way to describe his response to the question of standalone HBO is...maybe. However, the motivation behind the idea makes perfect sense.   For example, the wildly popular show Game of Thrones is the most illegally downloaded show on HBO which led analysts to come up with two possibilities. One, people are illegally downloading shows and can’t be stopped so they need to invent some sort of “RoboCop.” Or two, HBO must find a way to make content available to those without premium cable. (via A.V. Club )   Assuming they develop the second option, what would it cost? A writer for The Atlantic Wire reports Plepler offered a possible price point of $10 to $15 a month. In theory, a customer could just have internet, then add the HBO service.   Supporting the price claim is the fact that HBO currently gets $7 per month per subscriber through their existing cable channels, so the standalone feature would have to cost more.   But before you get too excited, listen to what Plepler said back in January about the possible ramifications of going around HBO’s established cable relationships. “There are billions and billions of dollars in revenues that are part of our distribution landscape, and to simply circumvent that...just doesn’t make business sense for us to do.”   Bloomberg goes on to say while the idea is great and will probably happen eventually, it’s not likely anytime soon.