My TiVo has died twice - the first time after about 1.5 years of service, and the second time after a year of service with a new hard drive.
Being a tech weenie, I gladly replaced the hard drives myself (and upgraded each time), but his/her point is clear and legit to me.
Hard drives fail, and often. The common user, who spends $150 - $300 for a nice little piece of electronic hardware, usually does not have to worry about it failing inside a year. Heck, how many of us have stereos, or microwaves, or clock radios fail at such a rate?
Granted, the hard drive is always on and spinning (or at least usually on and spinning), so that becomes the typical failure point.
But picking on a guy/girl with a legitimate complaint - Hey, my TiVo died, and tech support is telling me to treat it like a toaster! - is, in my mind, not a way to make converts to TiVo or the technology.
The thing I like about my Time Warner HD DVR is that if it acts squirrelly, I can always hand it back for a brand spanking new one (or at least someone's old one that works). As for my TiVo, next time the HD(s) die(s), I'm out another $200 or more bucks, plus the time it takes for Weaknees to ship a new HD (or two).