ars Technica has a good article, TiVo just wants to be free on their new pricing model. They are eliminating upfront hardware costs and are going to a pure subscription model with no unit lifetime option.
As a Tivo lover and shareholder I'm not to happy about this. I've been waiting for an HD Tivo for several years and will buy one the moment it's available. But most of my frineds who didn't buy Tivo cite the monthly fee as a barrier. I'd go the other way and raise the box costs and lower the monthly fees dramatically. Makes it easier to give as a gift. TiVo's competition is cable DVR service which is close to half as expensive. If you model is the same, how to do you convince people that the premium is worth it? Particularly when people who are watching less TV are already paying monthly cable bills and monthly netflix service. Being third to this party doesn't sound appealing.
Maybe I'm wrong, people seem will to pay for netflix and they have a good model to give trial memberships as gifts, but they don't have to get a box into your hands.
Update: See this for some more details. Get that lifetime while you can.
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