Well, at the risk of continuing to go off-topic, let me explain further. TiVo's consumer business model has not evolved much in the 20+ years we've been selling DVR's. I can go into more detail in another thread, but mechanisms like targeted advertising, content delivery and premium services are all going to be needed in order for us to help bring down the out-of-pocket costs for consumers over time.
See, and all of that is COMPLETELY fine with me. I have always had a hard time selling Tivo because of the cost, but if you offered an experience that had ads, at say $10/month, it would be easier to sell to the average consumer.
Where I have a problem is, as someone who paid full price for Tivo, and someone who still would WITHOUT ads (so in this scenario I would expect to pay more) I am being treated the same, and subject to the same ads as someone who benefited from lower up front costs. If I got in my car, but before I could put it in gear I had to listen to a 30 second ad or hit another button, that car would be sold immediately. I currently pay for Netflix, if they started putting ads for Ford or Chevy, or whatever, in front of each episode that I couldn't opt out of by paying a higher fee, I would cancel my subscription and never return.
This whole thing just leaves a sour taste in my mouth about Tivo. Since it's not coming to TE3, I'll likely just roll back to that until this Tivo finally dies rather than buying a new Tivo. I guess the sad part for me is, I was really excited to do that before this announcement, but I guess now comes the excitement of finding a replacement.
At the very least, existing customers should be grandfathered in at the "premium" tier (the one we have now) and new customers can decide to pay less for the ad tier, or upgrade to the "premium" tier.
