I’ve had Tivo for about 5 years now, and I love it.
This Christmas, I was investigating upgrading to get a new model, perhaps with a few more features, more space, etc. It turns out that Tivo purchase and payment options are crazy complicated — they’re just as bad (if not worse) as cell phone plans.
On the surface, they’re simple, but there’s a million combinations of factors, only some of which are valid. Indeed, the language on the Tivo web site seems to contradict itself with regards to multi-service discount, for example (I am left to wonder — is anyone eligible for multi-service discount?).
Woof.
While it’s annoying, I can understand why cell phone plans are compilcated. Here’s my theory: all cell phone service is more-or-less the same, so the companies differentiate their products by claiming that their plans are “the best”. But in reality they’re so complicated that it’s difficult — if not impossible — to make a true apples-to-apples comparison). Indeed, the very complexity of the plans makes it easy to highlight specific features and claim that they’re “better” than the compeitition.
But why on earth would Tivo need to do that? Flexibility in purchasing is a good thing. But flexibility to the extremely, where it’s so confusing and detail-specific — and then to have contradictory language on the site explaining all the details — that’s just not helpful. ☹
FWIW, I decided to stick with my current first-generation series 2 Tivo. Since I have a lifetime subscription, I stopped paying for it aeons ago. None of the new features are compelling enough yet for me to want to start paying a monthly fee again.