Why This Tivo Fan is Saying Goodbye To Tivo (and Television With It)
I really like my Tivo. It lets me cut out commercials. It lets me watch what I want, when I want it. Lastly, it gives me all sorts of extra features like looking at my photos on my television.
That said, I’m kicking Tivo out of my place and the TV is going with it. Why? Two reasons, one of which is Tivo’s fault and the other is a reflection on how crappy the economics of television are.
Tivo Drops a Lot of Balls
Tivo’s lack of mac support over the last year has been rediculous. First they admitted that TivoToGo wasn’t going to see any life on the mac for a long time. As if that wasn’t enough, they then didn’t update their Home Media software to work with Mac OS 10.4 and the fact that they haven’t issued a fix clearly shows that they don’t have anyone left working on mac software. So, all those cool features like looking at photos and listening to music on my Tivo are now gone and the ability to copy video to my laptop for trips will probably never arrive after a year of waiting.
I Don’t Want to Feed My Local Monopolies
The cost of television has been crazy for a long time, but it’s become clear only recently that the value for that money has just gotten worse and worse. With basic cable costing about $50 a month and my Tivo adding another $13, a $63 bill is a bit much for what is an affection for The Daily Show. If the cost were lower, I’d probably keep cable, but it’s not and there’s a clear reason why: local monopolies. If I want cable, I have to use (guess who?) Comcast. Do I have any other options? Not one and I live in the decently sized city of Seattle. I can’t do satellite because I don’t have the line of sight needed and the cost is about the same anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real cost competition between Comcast and DirecTV, so the idea that they really qualify as competition seems like a joke.
So, I cut the cable out of the picture and decided to see what antenna life was like. I ended up Tivoing four shows: Jeopardy, Family Guy, the Simpsons and The Eyes of Nye. I wasn’t really sure if this was worth $13 a month as well as the space in my living room. As of today, I’ve made my choice. I’ve called Tivo and closed my account and I’m getting rid of the television. They were pretty desperate to get me to stay. First, they offered two months of Tivo service free. I said no thank you. Then they offered to lower my monthly rate to $6.95. Nice try, but no thanks once again.
What It Will Take to Get Me Back
Some decent programming would be a nice change, but I’ll try to be reasonable here. Someone please fix the economics of this thing and use the Internet to do it. I can get all the features of Tivo if you simply let me buy my shows one at a time over the Internet. We all know it’s coming, but it can’t get here soon enough. Once it does arrive, at a decent price of course, I’ll come back and spend some hard earned income. Until then, until someone shatters the local cable monopoly nightmare, I’ll spend my cash on better forms of entertainment like music and books and local events. I’d love it if you did the same, if the various local monopolies realized they offered a mediocre product at an awful price and we just aren’t going to put up with it anymore. I’m not sure what else would make them change their ways other than showing them there’s money on the table, but they can’t have it.