Aidan Gillen in HBO's "Game of Thrones." devan joseph You could think of the latest offering from Comcast as kind of like a gateway drug — once you try it, you'll get hooked, and then you'll come back to Comcast for more.

It's called Stream, and the company generated lots of headlines earlier this week when it announced it in a blog post.

That's because with Stream you'll be able to get TV service from Comcast without having a cable box, something that hadn't previously been an option. It doesn't require a contract or any special equipment, you can quit at any time, and no technician will need to come to your home to install anything.

"We want to make ordering Stream as easy as buying a song online," Matt Strauss, the executive vice president and general manager of video services at Comcast, wrote in the blog post. "And make tuning in to a show as simple as opening an email."

But Stream is also a genius way to get cord cutters to start paying for cable.

In case you missed it earlier this week, Stream is an app that for $15 a month allows people to watch broadcast networks including ABC, NBC, and CBS, as well as HBO, online. For now it's limited to mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and PCs, but the company plans to make it available on TVs as well.

(If you want to watch HBO on your TV using something like Apple TV, a Roku player, or Chromecast, you can just use the HBO Go app, which is included as part of a subscription to Stream.)

Emilia Clarke in HBO's "Game of Thrones." HBO Stream is available only to people who already get their broadband internet from Comcast. The company plans to test the service in Boston, Chicago, and Seattle before releasing it in all of its markets by early next year.

Here's the thing: $15 a month is actually a pretty good deal for people who already pay Comcast for internet. After all, HBO Now, HBO's standalone streaming service that the company announced to much fanfare earlier this year, is $15 a month.

With Stream you will be able to watch HBO and broadcast networks and use Xfinity Streampix, Comcast's video-streaming service. You also get 20 hours of a cloud DVR, so you can record shows online and watch them later.

What Comcast's new app Stream will look like on an iPad. Comcast

The caveat is that because of programming rights, you can stream live TV only when you're in your home and connected to your Comcast Wi-Fi network. Comcast says, however, that by the end of the year you will be able to watch live network broadcasts outside the home, at least in some markets. You can also watch on-demand programming and DVR recordings when you're out of your house.

But the company doesn't plan on its users keeping Stream forever. Comcast thinks people who subscribe to Stream will most likely upgrade to a more expensive service later.

Comcast is targeting the growing number of people, especially young people, who stream video online instead of paying a cable or satellite company for a traditional, and expensive, bundle of channels. The number of these cord-cutting households, which subscribe to broadband but don't pay for traditional TV, grew by 16% between 2012 and 2014, to 10.5 million, according to SNL Kagan, a media research firm.

Strauss told Business Insider in an interview earlier this week that he thought people in different stages of life wanted different things when it came to TV and video. When you're just out of college and in your 20s, broadband internet and subscriptions to Netflix and HBO might satisfy your entertainment needs.

But later on, when you start to make more money, and perhaps buy a house or have kids, you may want — and be more willing to pay for — more.

"The challenge for us is how do we build a relationship with that segment earlier on in the life cycle with the belief that over time they will see more and more value in the products and services that we offer," Strauss said.

Comcast has good reason to think this will work — the company has found that many people who buy Comcast's "Internet Plus" package, a so-called skinny bundle of local TV channels, broadband, and HBO, that starts at about $45 a month (not including equipment, installation, and fees, of course), end up upgrading to bigger, more expensive packages.

Comcast also has its technology going for it. The company hasn't released Stream beyond a small test group yet, but it will probably be a good app. Comcast has invested a lot in trying to both shed the image of the old-fashioned cable company and create user-friendly technology, not just in its apps but also in its X1 cable box.

The Xfinity TV app, which allows X1 DVR customers with cloud services to stream live TV as well as on-demand and recorded shows. Comcast

At an investor conference earlier this year, Brian Roberts, Comcast's CEO, said his company had as many software engineers as Facebook.

So Comcast hopes a Stream subscriber gets a taste of Comcast and not only finds that the technology is easy to use, but also wants to watch more than just the broadcast networks and a premium channel (and record more than just 20 hours on a DVR).

Comcast will most likely make it very easy to upgrade.

It's a grand experiment to combat the cord-cutting trend. We'll just have to see whether it will work, especially as more and more streaming options become available.