Comments on: Nothing But Net: R.I.P. My TiVo (Dec. 25, 2006 – May 21, 2010)

By: SteelMagnolia

SteelMagnolia — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 02:15:52 +0000

Hey AS: Was it necessary to be so rude & claim the author is whining??

A Tivo box should last longer than 3 1/2 years. Mine has. Fact is that Tivo should subsidize some of the box cost considering you’re paying a monthly fee. After all, cable gives them out for free (shiver). I expect my $100 DVD player to last more than 3 years. And I certainly would hope a $200 Tivo box would be in for the long haul.

As the author expressed, Tivo subscribers should not be left to their own devices and have to find support online elsewhere. But that is unfortunately the case – Tivo customer support is the pits.

By: Lev Chernyi

Lev Chernyi — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:22:21 +0000

@AS: So you think planned obsolence being engineered into products is a positive, or at the very worst benign, design spec?

While it is true that eventually wear and tear will reduce the ability of a good to complete its function as efficiently as possible, the prevailing Taylorist managerial model combined with the carterlizing effects of patent and copyright law have pretty much insured a constant source of revenue for TiVo and other firms based on similar business models. For most firms today “innovation” means, in practice, 1) developing processes so capital-intensive and high-tech that, if all costs were fully internalized in the price of the goods produced, consumers would prefer simpler and cheaper models; or 2) developing products so complex and prone to breakdown that, if cartelized industry weren’t able to protect its shared culture from outside competition, the consumer would prefer a more durable and user-friendly model. Cartelized, over-built industry deals with overproduction through planned obsolescence, and through engineering a mass-consumer culture, and succeeds because, again, the cartelization of particular ideas and industries restricts the range of consumer choice.

Why shell out another 200 dollars when you can pay a tech 20 to replace the buck-fifty part that is defective? Because it wouldn’t be good for the bottom line of TiVo or any other holder of intellectual monopoly.

By: AS

AS — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:24:56 +0000

Boy, what whining… if your DVD player breaks after 3 years and it’s long out of warranty, do you call up Sony and expect them to come to your house and give you a new one? What if your washing machine breaks past its warranty… you have to pay up for a repairman or buy a new one if the repairs exceed the value of the machine. If you have a 10-year-old car and the transmission goes out, Toyota does not come to your house and fix it for free. You have to decide whether it’s worth paying big $$ to fix it — or get rid of the car.

Some things can be repaired, some things cannot. Your DVD player cannot be repaired in general. It’s not worth it. Your washing machine might be able to. Your TiVo is a $200 computer that simply is not economical to repair.

You could have bought an extended warranty if you can’t handle it breaking. TiVo sells an extended warranty.

I have owned two TiVos for 8 years. They are reliable in general, but of course eventually all things electronic will break. It’s reality.