Well, I just read that Tivo is changing their pricing structure. This furthers my speculation that Tivo is a dying company. I’ve got Tivo. If you recall, I got my 140 hour Tivo for free. All I had to do was pay the first years subscription. Any way you slice it, this was a good deal. I fully plan to either get them to lower my monthly subscription after the year is up, or I’m going to sell this thing on Ebay. If that doesn’t get me much, I might just keep using it without the schedule information. (You can use a Tivo unit as a recorder, but you just have to pick the time and channel to schedule instead of using their super sexy on screen guide) I love Tivo, but I’m not emotionally attached to it. Basically, I love the idea of recording shows to a hard drive and being able to watch it on my schedule. The only problem for Tivo is that they aren’t the only ones that can do this, and the PVR space is only getting more crowded with each passing day.
Now, before I poopoo on them too much. Let me tell you what I like about Tivo:
I like their interface and menus
I like their remote
I like pausing live TV
I like having LOTS of shows on the Tivo that I can watch “on command”
Now, what I don’t like about them:
While their newest features (streaming internet music, movie listings, tie in’s with Yahoo) are neat, I won’t use them. It’s just not something that I would find myself wanting to use.
I don’t like the slow response when hitting buttons. (They used slow, inexpensive components to run their OS)
Anyway, it is looking like Tivo is frantically trying to tweak their business model to survive. You can’t blame them, but I just don’t think their long term subscription model is going to work.