Why should I pay for TiVo to Go Plus

[shack072]

What about the early adopters of Home Media Option, that had to pay for it? I paid for it for 2 tivos, then they deside to give it out for free. I say if you were one of the people that already paid for it once, they should give it to you free this time around? What does everyone else think?

~~Shack

[Dan203]

Why do people keep comparing this to HMO? This is NOT the same thing. HMO was an experiment in marketing add-on features to the TiVo service. It failed and they decided to give the features away for free to help their over all service sales. TiVo Desktop Plus contains codecs which actually have a runtime licensing fee. Which means that they have to pay for every copy they send out that has the ability to convert to these new formats. (based on what I've seen it's probably close to $20 per copy) And if they were to give it away for free they would have to pay that fee for every single copy downloaded, even if it was never used or a simple redownload after a format, etc.. With a pay system they not only recoupe the cost but they have a tracking system in place so they only have to pay fees for people who actually use the codecs.

Dan

[Stu_Bee]

Well "already paid for it once" isn't completely accurate since this is a different program.

I'm not sure how much (if anything) they will be making off the product, since there is included licenses for the codecs.

(ps. I paid for the original HMO too...but that's water long under the bridge now)

Edit: Darn it Dan! Beat me again.

[shack072]

Even though it is a "different program", shouldn't the people that already paid for something that is given away for free (well, besides the normal Tivo sub. cost) get this for "free" for a way of saying sorry? I know it is a shot in the dark, but that would be a very nice thing for Tivo to do.

[Dan203]

If you would have called and complained back when they first announced that HMO was going to be free they would have credited you about $30 per unit. More then enough to pay for this.

Oh and for the record I paid for HMO on 4 units ($250), and didn't even care when they released it for free. I got use of the features for over a year before they released it for free, so I felt like I got my money's worth.

Dan

[Stu_Bee]

Yeah...it was one of those squeaky wheel policies. If you called them and complained they did some kinda credit (as Dan pointed out).
I hate squeaky wheel policies, so I didn't do it.

[megazone]

Yeah...it was one of those squeaky wheel policies. If you called them and complained they did some kinda credit (as Dan pointed out).
I hate squeaky wheel policies, so I didn't do it.
Yeah, I paid for HMO on three boxes myself. I knew about the 'refund' thing and didn't call. I also didn't take part in that stupid Pioneer class action lawsuit. Lots of things I've paid for over the years are later offered as free - I bought Netscape's browser in the early days, for example. That's just life.