Muse, Fleshconsumed...
The problem you are having is that people can find it hard to actually explain what you get with
the subscription that makes it worthwhile and makes a TiVo much more than a VCR on steroids.
(Note, I do not own a TiVo yet, but I've been doing research in preparation to get one (or two).
so if I get some information here wrong, I hope the real TiVo users will add corrections)
1st you have to understand something about the TiVo business model that relates to this very thread.
The reason you can find TiVos FAR at all is because they have a secondary revenue stream that
allows the company to subsidize the cost of producing TiVo units. That secondary stream is the
subscription model for the additional services you get to "enhance your TV viewing experience".
Without that secondary revenue, the TiVo units would cost much more than they currently do.
Tivo also licenses its technology to other companies so they can build units, which reduces thier
cost of production, while giving them a third revenue stream for the same products, and creates
a broader market for Tivo devices.
2nd (the guide itself). Half the reason why Tivos can do all the great things they can with TV is
because the hardware/software is designed to treat incoming video as a streamable media, even
while it is being captured (so you can pause, rewind and fast forward even on "live" TV shows).
This was revolutionary when it first came out, now there are a few other products than can
do the same thing; but most don't do so as well as TiVo has, and they've had time to see the
competition and improve on that technology even further.
The other half is in how Tivos handle the guide data they download. It doesn't just keep a
guide like TVguide.com and refer to that when it needs to record shows. The Tivo creates
a separate database from the incoming guide information. That guide data is prepared in
such a way that the Tivo can parse out information like for actors, directors, categories, titles
and other keywords; as well as other information about the show/series/movie. It then
makes use of that database for things like season passes, wishlists, and user ratings to
make it more efficient at finding and recording your favorite shows.
See
http://www.keegan.org/jeff/tivo/whatistivo.html
for other examples of how this can be used. Check out section 9 and 10 specifically.
3rd
Steve0 I don't think it'll be long, thanks to competition, before TiVo will be forced to provide its service for free.
I think it will be a lot longer than you expect. The additional data that is prepared for the Tivo
guide still gives it an advantage over most other offerings. Plus they have established patents
on parts of the technology that protect them to some degree, from cheap knockoffs.
Anybody that wants to compete with Tivo will have to either provide a similar quality device and
service (as ReplayTV does), or try to flood the market with lesser devices that offer some
of the same functionality (as the cable companies are trying to do).
4th (hackability, brand recognition and loyalty)
One of the reasons Tivo was able to develop such a fan-base was the decision early on to allow
a certain degree of hacking on the boxes. As long as the hacks were not doing something
clearly illegal or in violation of copyright, Tivo was willing to look the other way while users went
wild trying to figure out what other things they could get their setups to do. It also didn't hurt
that Tivo software is based on Linux, which of course caught the attention of many in the open
source community. That (along with cooly changing they way users viewed TV) helped spread
the word of mouth about their product, and is a large part of why Tivo has such evangelists as
they do today. Tivo has also (for the most part) been responsive to user feedback on what
changes could make the product better, and actually applied some of those ideas to the
second generation models.
That doesn't really speak to the subscription itself, but a lot of people feel better about paying
the company for something that they are actually interested in improving in favor of thier
customers and not just the media moguls and advertisers.
5th, something that others have failed to mention, and I only know because a friend of mine
with two tivos discovered, Tivo recently rolled the [l
=http://www.tivo.com/4.9.asp Media Option[/l]into the regular service cost for the Tivo.
Again, this may not be appealing for everyone, but it is another concrete example of how the subscriptions have increased in value over the years.