NY Times blog: Tivo is worth the expense.

[InFromTheCold]

I would paste in the whole article, but I'm guessing it will violate someone's rules so I'll limit myself to the link (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/tivo-economics/). Basically, he argues that considering how much time he saves skipping commercials, and how much he's paid for his time, Tivo pays for itself many times over. Interesting contrary analyses in the comments. Enjoy.

Edit: Just fixing the link to go to the main page instead of the print page so people can actually see the comments

[kamcma]

If that's his logic, it would seem he is arguing that DVR generically is worth it, not specifically TiVo.

[Dan203]

Yeah, I don't buy his argument. He's assuming that you'll spend all the extra time you save by skipping commercials working, which is just not the case for most people. Instead they'll spend that extra time watching more TV or doing other leisure activities.

The benefit of TiVo is not economical. It's about making the most of your free time. Personally, pre-TiVo, I had a few nights a week where I was chained to the couch because there was some must watch program on. These days I'm out doing other things 3-4 nights a week knowing that I can catch up on those must watch shows late at night or on lazy Sunday afternoons. So while TiVo doesn't actually give me more or less free time, it helps me maximize the free time I have so that I get the most enjoyment out of it. That to me is worth the cost of admission.

Dan

[mattack]

The benefit of TiVo is not economical. It's about making the most of your free time. Personally, pre-TiVo, I had a few nights a week where I was chained to the couch because there was some must watch program on.

You had no reason to be chained to the couch, since you could have (and I certainly did) the
same thing with VCRs before Tivo.. it's just a lot more convenient (mostly) now.

[nrc]

You had no reason to be chained to the couch, since you could have (and I certainly did) the
same thing with VCRs before Tivo.. it's just a lot more convenient (mostly) now.

That's laughable. VCRs could set up basic repeat recordings There was no practical way to record every episode of dozens of programs without constant manual intervention. Never mind things like wish lists and multiple tuners. You would have to trade being "chained to your couch" for being "chained to your battery of VCRs" to achieve anything close to what we have with DVRs today.

[Dan203]

You had no reason to be chained to the couch, since you could have (and I certainly did) the same thing with VCRs before Tivo.. it's just a lot more convenient (mostly) now.

While I'm more then capable of programming a VCR, I just never got into it. It was just too much of a hassle to remember to swap the tapes, queue them to the proper position, remember which shows were on which tape, etc... I'm just not that organized. However when I heard about TiVo I knew I wanted one. And as soon as they fell into a price range I could afford I bought one. (I paid ~$400, plus $13/mo, for my first 30 hour TiVo back when I was still only making barely more then minimum wage)

Dan