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.
Previously
Tivo’s Death is Television’s Future
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I also don’t own a TV, for many reasons. The top 2 are that I disdain loud and flashing advertisements for products I don’t want to know about, and every time I watch TV, I think of something else I’d rather be doing.
I keep pretty busy without TV, and enjoy spending my time and money on music, books, or going outside and doing something with people I actually know.
If I did have a TV, I still wouldn’t pay for service. I’d rather get Netflix and pay less money to watch movies I actually want to see without advertisements I don’t want to see.
I think you’re making a good point about the economics of broadcast/cable TV. It’s always a good idea to take your money away from bad products and services and force monopolists to stop being so lazy if they really want your cash. However, I doubt it will drive any better content — although that presents an interesting chicken-and-egg question: (1) Do people watch bad TV programming because they have bad taste and therefore drive up demand for bad TV programming, forcing media companies to create more bad programming to stay competitive? or (2) Does the broadcast nature of TV force media companies to target the lowest common denominator and produce bad programming?
Tivo and the future of TV
I’ve just finished reading an article about a Tivo fan who is getting rid of their Tivo box and Television. It was a pretty good read and occasionally mirrored some of my own thoughts.
As somebody who is a fan of Tivo, I found moving house six mont…
It’s funny Christian, I was just writing you an email this morning to thank you for your birthday wishes when I was interrupted by the Comcast cable guy.
I have used rabbit ears for the past 4 years, but as of today I now get 25 channels for $10 a month. Did I want them? Nah, I hate TV and rarely watch it (my girlfriend Heather has something of an addiction to PBS however and I occasionally catch Jeopardy or the Simpsons).
THE REASON why I chose to get cable today is because I’m preparing to get BROADBAND INTERNET. I’ve suffered with a dialup connection for too long and now that I’m 30 I’m starting to lose my erections before my porn can fully download.
I live in Harrisburg, and I have only two options for Broadband- Cable, or DSL. (no wireless, but maybe Satellite if I want to pay $75+)
I absolutely hate Comcast and the monopoly they have on this part of the country, but the only provider for DSL is Verizon.
Residents of Harrisburg may remember when Verizon funded a hateful television campaign where they hired James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, Mufasa, and God, to tell the rest of Central Pennsylvania that the residents of Harrisburg were fucking up their chances at cheap long distance by wanting more choices.
I could have gotten DSL through Sprint, but then my service provider would have been Earthlink, who moved over 400 jobs from Harrisburg to Malaysia, prompting one distressed former employee to end his life by jumping off a bridge, and I would still have had to keep Verizon for my local phone service.
Therefore I chose to have my wallet raped by Comcast for internet at $55 a month so that I can use Vonage instead of Verizon.
The choice was Cable ($55) & Vonage ($15) for $70 a month vs DSL ($30) & Verizon ($30) for $60. Man, talk about choices! Which evil corporate assholes to support? It reminds me of the presidential elections.
I decided to go with Cable & Vonage because I get more phone features with Vonage, and I get 25 television channels, and cable is faster anyway. I still think Broadband is waaaaay overpriced though, and I have a sneaking suspicion my heavy bill is subsidizing discounts for bigger corporate customers.
When my wife (and new son) and I moved to our new townhouse in Ballard, one of our consequential decisions was to get rid of our TV — mainly for the kid’s sake.
It’s the best thing we ever did. Along with the TV went the Tivo, the VCR, the DVD player, the cable box, the subwoofer and four speakers, all the other widgets I was planning to hook up to it, and the ugly piece of furniture that held it all.
Now, I download the TV shows I want off the internet. Yes, it’s illegal, but it’s easy, there are no commercials, I can watch them when I choose, and for the very reasons you describe here, I don’t have much sympathy for the cable monopolists. If they made individual shows available for download at a reasonable price, I would pay.
But I’m not paying $65 and importing all that crap back into my living room — and polluting my kid’s mind — just to see the Daily Show.
(And Deadwood.)
(Okay, and Arrested Development, Entourage, The Shield, Six Feet Under, The Wire, West Wing, and The O.C. But that’s it.)
Right on. Ever since they cut off my illegal cable it’s been nothing but PBS on rabbit ears. (I didn’t even know my hookup was illegal - or that I had it - I just stupidly assumed there were more channels in New York than in less urbane cities.)
Thing is, there’s already a video on demand service at reasonable rates, and in the course of its existence it has already threatened the life of another corporate bugaboo I’m not too fond of (Blockbuster) - it’s called Netflix. Sure, I have to wait for stuff to hit DVD, but there’s so much to catch up on, it’s more than I’ll ever go through.
Besides, where else am I going to get Werner Herzog documentaries, vintage films, and every episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, ever?
[...] With It) Filed under: Culture, Technology, Entertainment — Scott @ 2:29 pm (via Obviousdiversion.com) I really like my Tivo. It lets me cut out commercials. It lets me watch what I w [...]