Here’s an email I received earlier today. I’ve also included my reply because I thought it was kind of funny.
Initial Email:
Tivo is the biggest scam goin. As has been stated over and over again, the lifetime membership is a lie. All that means is that during the limited lifetime of your present Tivo box, you can use Tivo. Once it breaks, you have zero options. In otherwords, your lifetime membership is worthless Also, if you’ve been a loyal tivo customer from the beginning, as I have, and you want to upgrade to a newer box, again your membership is worthless. So you’ve wasted money with this company. I’d avoid Tivo like the plague. There will be a bigger and better company coming along soon that will put them out of business which is what they deserve.
My Reply:
Sounds good…let me know when that company comes along. In the mean time, enjoy your buggy cable company DVR…
His Reply:
Tivo is the Aol of the dvr companies. Someone bigger and better will knock them off. All it takes is a company that understands its customers. Tivo does not.
My Reply:
OK, thanks
Some people shouldn’t go off their meds.
TiVo lifetime is clearly product lifetime. Of course, sicne it is no longer available, how is it still a scam anyway? Even when you could buy it, if the box lasted two years – which nearly all units do – you were ahead of the curve on payments. Hardly a scam.
Even if the box broke it is almost always the drive, which can be replaced and you keep the lifetime. If you want to upgrade to a newer box, then you can sell the old one for a good deal of money. I sold three TiVos with lifetime over the years as I purchased newer boxes. So his bit about upgrades is bogus. Plus they offered transfers of lifetime when the Series2 and now Series3 came out.
Lifetime was such a great scam that TiVo was losing money on it, which is why they stopped offering it.
Just which ‘bigger and better’ company is going to come along and put them out of business? People have been saying that since TiVo launched in 1999 and it hasn’t happened yet. No one has even come close to matching them in usability and features. You can get a DVR for less, but it shows.
This guy is a loony.
Love the site hate the post, not sure why you wasted your time posting it.
TiVo provides a service no one else does and no one is forcing anyone to buy it, it’s obvious to me why TiVo stopped offering the Lifetime service, there really is no winning with some people.
While he is waiting for the next big thing I am enjoying my HR10-250 and my Series3.
I posted it because I thought it was funny. Granted it doesn’t add any value but it is kind of funny…
BTW, nice job with the re-launch of EngadgetHD.
There is nothing like a Tivo.
I bought a Series 1 in late 2001 and bought a Lifetime subscription several months later when they temporarily lowered the price to $199. I saved much more than the cost over the years.
When I bought a Series 2 with a DVD burner a few years ago, I got a reduced monthly rate of $6.95 on this unit. The DVD burner is handy.
Recently I sold my Lifetime subscription on eBay to someone who was buying a Series 3.
So, you can see, Ive made back my investment many times over, and there’s nothing like the Tivo in terms of features and functions available.
The Tivo is Great!
“All it takes is a company that understands its customers.”
All it takes? I wish it were that easy…very few companies understand their customers.
“Once it breaks, you have zero options.” Highly untrue. I recently had a Series2 that I had since the Series2 first were available break on me. TiVo replaced it with another model and transferred my service. I just had to pay
I would have to agree with the original email and completely understand the complaint about TiVo. Just because you like the product doesn’t mean you have to blindly worship every aspect of the company. Don’t get me wrong, I love my two Series2 TiVos (or at least use to love them before they started running slowly and crashing after the stupid KidZone software update) but the lifetime subscription was a rip off, especially since I know a lot of people who had boxes die before two years. And the monthly fees are outrageous when compared to similar devices and services. I personally pay the fees, mostly because I have the disposable income to do so and at this point the cost and hassle of adopting a new device is too great, but I can understand why a lot of my friends and family think I’m crazy.
Also, I’m not sure how you can so easily dismiss the possibility of a better company coming along and either buying or crushing TiVo. It would be hard to ignore the fact that TiVo’s future as a company has been hanging in the balance for years now and finally coming out with an overpriced HD DVR without transfer capabilities may have finally opened the door for wider adoption of a cable company DVR or other device, even for the most diehard TiVo fans. I personally was eagerly awaiting the Series3 release but was extremely disappointed with both the cost and lack of functionality.
Maybe the initial email was a bit extreme but TiVo is not a company without flaws and I think the lifetime membership was a serious one. I’m disappointed that the TiVo soldiers who read this blog so quickly attacked someone with names like “loony” who was just making a valid point. TiVo does not put out the most stable product so if you were a consumer with a lifetime subscription on a one year old defective box that was no longer under warranty, you would be upset.
P.S. anyone else having the same Series2 problems since the stupid KidZone software update? I feel both my boxes are getting slower everyday and the delay between selecting a menu item and the screen actually changing is increasing by seconds all the time. I really wish TiVo made software downloads optional and not automatically pushed to your box. I would have never accepted the KidZone update, especially if I knew it was going to kill both my boxes. Thank goodness I don’t have a lifetime membership.
On the topic of “lifetime”…
My Tivo series 1 finally died (based on clicking noise, suspect bad drive), and this is the support I received:
1 – Must go to Philips for service because unit was not direct from Tivo. Philips wants $20 to talk to tech to find pricing on replacement drive. They will apply $20 towards repair, but won’t tell you the repair amount until AFTER you pay the money.
2 – Tivo phone support wouldn’t budge on moving service to Tivo 2.
3 – They will migrate to series 3 for $200. ($200 transfer fee + $680 sale price on Series 3 is too much! Since the original unit is dead, the “keep you service on the other unit for a year” is worthless.)
Ive been a loyal Tivo owner, with three Tivos w/ Lifetime service, even buying Tivo to go before they gave it away, but still no love from Tivo.
Much Sadness.
Paul
PS – I can deal w/ the death of a Tivo, and my biggest problem is with Philips and not Tivo, but I was hoping that Tivo would go the extra mile and allow me to transfer the service to one of the refurbished DVD Tivos they are pushing in their current ads.
This guy is the type of nut who just doesn’t have taste. The type that doesn’t think that smart design is worth a little more. The type who’d shop at Walmart, despite their awful business practises and say it’s the little guys fault they couldn’t compete.
TiVo is an amazing product and if I could get cablecards from my local Canadian cable company, I’d buy one, without hesitation.
A lot of people are having the same problem. Check out this post: http://www.pvrwire.com/2006/09/13/does-kidzone-make-your-tivo-slower/
John,
I don’t think it is a valid point at all. Lifetime is clearly product lifetime. If someone bought it, then they knew what they were buying and made the decision to do so. If the box lasted 2 years, you were ahead of the curve – and nearly all boxes do. Sure, some boxes will die sooner than that – but TiVo will repair boxes that are out of warranty, for a fee. And there are 3rd parties who will repair them too. On top of that, most failures are the hard drive – and that’s readily replaced by the end user. You can buy ready-to-run drives from WeaKnees.com or PTVUpgrade.com and drop them in. Or save money and image your own drive if you’re comfortable doing that.
Lifetime was the exact opposite of a rip off, it was the best deal TiVo had. I purchased lifetime on a total of 6 boxes, three of which I still own. I sold the other boxes for a good amount and made a lot back on them, making it very, very worth it. It was such a good deal that TiVo was losing money on it, which is why they dropped it. Lifetime was the best option, hands down.
I hardly think TiVo’s monthly fees are ‘outrageous’. First of all, the monthly fees subsidize the hardware – it is the cell phone model. TiVo figured out that the biggest barrier to new customers was the up-front cost of the box. They trialled different pricing plans and found that more customers were willing to pay higher monthly fees in exchange for lower, or zero, up-front fees. So that’s their primary pricing system now.
Then TiVo has ongoing costs. The guide data is not free, they have to pay TMS for it. ReplayTV had/has the same fees as TiVo. Cable companies and satellite providers already pay for guide data for their on screen guides, and you already pay for it in their fee structures. Microsoft includes the guide costs in the costs of Media Center Edition, and they expect users to replace their PC every few years.
Part of the cost of owning a TiVo is the service, which includes software development and updates. Anyone who doesn’t want that should simply not buy a TiVo.
As for the slowdown – it is a known issue in 7.3 and TiVo has stated they are working on a performance improvement for the next update.
Paul,
You could resurrect the S1 since it sounds like a dead drive. You can get a ready-to-run drive from WeaKnees.com or PTVUpgrade.com, or save some money and provide your own drive. Get the Instant Cake CD from PTVUpgrade.com and it has everything you need to image a drive for your TiVo. Then, if you want a newer model, eBay the S1 and you’ll get good money for it – more than enough for that DVD box and a few years of service.
Even the broken S1 would get some money on eBay, people buy units with lifetime to transfer to an S3, or to repair themselves.
MegaZone, thanks for information.
Alex, thanks for the link and it’s good to know I’m not alone with these Series2 boxes becoming dogs.
I wonder if TiVo is going to offer a discounted rate or some form of refund to everyone with 7.3 for the poor performance and service over the past couple of months? Why should I pay the same rate for a different and inferior product? And why does TiVo seem to screw something up every time they release new software? I really appreciate TiVo trying to raise my kids but I’ve got that covered. TiVo should just focus on providing a consistent and quality product and consider making future software “updates” optional. At this point, even that appears too much for TiVo developers to handle.
John,
They’re not going to make updates optional, they’ve said that. Making updates optional means having to support multiple different versions in the field, indefinitely, and that raises costs significantly. Part of their business model is automatic updates to keep everyone on a unified base. If you really don’t want updates then you can hack the box and disable updating, but then you will not receive support.
The slowdown in 7.3 wasn’t directly related to KidZone, it happens if KZ is on or off. It happens, performance has gone up and down over time as they release new software. The slowdown for 7.3 is most noticable on the 5xx boxes since they’re the slowest hardware, it is almost unnoticable on the S2DT/6xx boxes, and not bad at all on the 1xx/2xx boxes. Different users experience different levels of slowdown, so it seems to also depend on how the box is used.
I don’t think it is a fair characterization to say thye ’screw something up every time they release new software’. I’ve been a user for nearly 5 years, since 2.0 software, so I’ve seen a lot of updates. It is actually the rare occurance that an update causes problems. Most of the updates have been very clean, just adding new features. And many have improved performance.
I have 7.3.1 and I’m happy with it – my DVR-810H is a little slower, but not bad, and my S2DT is still fast. My RS-TX20 slowed down more, but I barely use it. I could see users with 5xx units as their main box being more frustrated.
TiVo is aware of the feedback from users on the slowdown and has said the next release will focus on improving performance. That’s the best response I think they can make.
TiVo is like every software vendor, it is rare that every software update is golden. It doesn’t matter if it is Microsoft, Red Hat, Mozilla, Oracle, etc, they’ve all had releases which turned out to be less than stellar. It is possible to test software to a greater degree – see flight control software, medical software, banking systems, etc – but that greatly increases costs and lengthens development time, and consumers aren’t willing to pay those costs in their consumer products. Most companies aren’t willing to pay those costs for commercial systems either. The tradeoff is accepting some bugs.
MegaZone, thanks again for the information. Do you work for TiVo? If not, you should definitely get on their payroll! I’ll be looking forward to the release that improves performance. Like I said before, I own 2 TiVos and I am a big fan of the product. But I would still like to see TiVo remain competitive and get the stock back up by focusing on designing products that are more stable and affordable ($800 Series 3???) instead of wasting development time and resources on functionality like KidZone and the ability to order movie tickets on my TV! I’m sure a bunch of geeks will jump all over this but has anyone ever really checked the weather or read a traffic report on their TiVo? If you actually answered “yes” to this question, then I don’t want to know about it but I will warn you that the TiVo lemmings are getting dangerously close to the cliff!