I could get from the content provider's websites for free for example (right about every TV channel has a website). I doubt very much THEY would care considering it is in their interest that I watch their channels.
Regardless, you're avoiding the central issue. They are not giving anyone a choice. If they did, who knows! Maybe some free provider (a la cddb) would pop up. Maybe the network provider would let the customer pull the info in some sort of XML format. Or maybe me and a bunch of friends would take turn to update our own database running on a home server. With enough people you'd only have to do it every once in a long while. There just is no saying what could happen...
Also the alledged high cost for them to harvest the data is probably in large part due that the network have little interest to help another company make money off their backs. If it was a free service (call it freelistings.org) - who knows, maybe the networks would make it a lot easier.
Bottom line. I won't buy an (expensive) piece of hardware that ties me in a specific service. But they way, what do you plan on doing if TiVo decides that their service is worth $25/month starting next month? Or $45 a year after that?
If their business model is to sell the service, they should give the hardware (even if I have to return it when I cancel - just like a cable box).
Well, previous poster wasn't talking about bug fixes but major upgrades to functionality... i.e., something that was already cool got cooler, blah blak
If you had read the rest of that paragraph, you would have seen that I have addressed that. I'll buy an upgrade if and when I want one. Just like I'll choose to upgrade my Windows box if and when I want to.
Also, context again... contrary to what you suggest, $10/month doesn't just get you listings. It gets you listings PLUS the functionality that comes with having regular listings PLUS the development of new functionality from a company that has been extremely responsive to customer demands/requests.
No. It gets you the listings. Everything else is software within the TiVo (which I bought- hardware and software) that parses and uses the listings. I refuse to rent software. Again, if they do come up with some amazing new feature that I must have, I would consider paying once for the software upgrade.
I have never said that TiVo should or shouldn't do anything. All I have said, is that I don't like it and I won't buy it. The bottom line, again, is that if I pay big bucks for a piece of hardware I expect to use anyway I see fit.
About the rest of you post - well, fine. It costs them more than I thought for this service. If you have number to back to up, I'd love to see them, however it's largely irrelevant. I don't want to have to use their service. I'd like to be able to use another service (let's call it freelistingsdb.org) or do it myself. This is a chicken and the egg problem here. Their cash burn rate is to maitain the servers, but of course you have no choice but to use their servers.
it's like buying a computer and expecting an ISP to give you Internet access for free
Not really. It's more like buying a computer and being told that you can only sign for this one overpriced ISP, and if you don't sign up, your computer can only be used as a calculator.
Or to use your GSM analogy, it's like buying an expensive GSM phone and be told you can only sign up to this one company at some ridiculous rate. Otherwise, all you can do is play "snake" on it.
Historically, when a device is tied to a specific service, one or the other is given away or GREATLY discounted (pennies on the dollar).
Tivo should be making its money from sellings its software to its hardware partners. Just like Microsoft sells Windows to the OEMs, just like Palm sells the PalmOS to Sony. If that's not enough to keep them afloat, they've negociated bad deals.
But it is the equivalent of a speedometer. Without the program guide, you're flying blind so to speak. And you have a glorified VCR with limited capacity and similar image quality (depending on what compression you choose).
The data is free. You can find it any number of places for free. It's just not free to get it from them. Which would be fine, if they gave you a choice to use another source and keep all the functionalities that are based on it.
Don't make it sound like the $10 goes mostly towards supporting some sort of elaborate infrastructure of theirs. It mostly goes towards their wallets since this is their business model.
You are prevented from using competing other service. There is no option to use other services (free or otherwise).
I guess one could reverse engineer the data transfer or something, but quite frankly, I have no interest to reverse engineer my VCR.
And yes! If I pay $200 for some A/V equipment I want to be able to do everything forever (well, until the hardware dies anyway)! What in the world is wrong with that? Do you expect anything else from your VCR or your DVD for example? Why would the Tivo be any different? All the features are self contained - except for the channel guide downloads, and THAT is not worth $10/month or much of anything really.
I don't mind paying for the electricity that feeds the tivo (equivalent of the gas in your analogy) and if any of the hardware insides wears out from usage I have no problem paying for a replacement part (equivalent to the tires in your analogy).
But I don't expect to pay a fee every month so that the speedometer keeps working past the first few weeks I bought the car (the equivalent of having to pay a fee after the short trial period that comes with it).
Software bux fixes and customer service is something I expect to get for free. Certainly I have never paid for a "firmware" upgrade for any hardware I have ever bought. I wouldn't mind paying for new features, but not on a subscription basis. If I want the upgrade, I am ready to pay a one time fee (if it's small otherwise I'll probably live without the upgrade).
On the second point, even if I believe that it does cost them *ANY* money to collect the data you describe (channel lineups, etc) it would amount to pennies per customer (not $10/month) which should be built-in the price. Or better yet, like I suggested, they should let me choose where to get the lineup.
Don't make it sound like this $10/month supports the infrastructure. It doesn't. It's a money making scheme (I don't think anyone, even them, would deny it) and I am not willing to fall for it.
It used to be that TiVos (the first version) were functional enough without the service. Sure enough, if you bought one a few years ago, you are "grand-fathered" into that level of functionality. I could have lived with that, but unfortunately I missed my cue to buy it then. As their business model stands today, there is no way I would buy one for all the reasons described in the first post.
Well, good for you!! I know you were trying to be sarcastic, but many people DO make that choice (not as much in the US for lack of alternatives). Just like I make the choice to not buy a TiVo.
Of course, gas, tires, oil are really concrete/physical things not "services" that cost little to nothing to host so your analogy doesn't work anyway.
The only thing they provide is the channel programming. There is at least a couple of thing they could have done with that:
1. make the software configurable in such a way that it could download the program info for whatever source you want (including my own server at home if I choose to). There are plenty of places on the net you can get the stuff from.
2. Like you suggest, take the "free appliance" route and take the risk that a small minority of people will hack it and take the loss on those people. The fact that most of these "free applicance" companies have indeed failed is because of a poor product (which I don't think Tivo is) not because of handful of slashdot types hacked their products.
Of course Tivo's business model should not be outlawed. Who in the world suggested that it should? All I said, is that I don't like it and therefore I won't buy it. You have a problem with that?
The fact of the matter is that Tivo makes the software (although a big chunk of it is GPLed) and, since they don't actually make the boxes (that's THEIR choice), their main revenue stream should be licensing the technology to Philips, Sony and whoever else uses it. If that's not the case, that's their problem.
As far as you PC + internet analogy, it is flawed for two reason:
1. PC cames before the internet. You're assuming that the only reason I bought my PC was to get on the internet. In comparison, the Tivo without the service in rather useless - especially after version 2 of their software.
2. Providing me with an internet connection DOES cost real money. In my case, I have a cable modem. There is the wire, the wire maintenance, the email/news server farms ***AND*** the hardware (cable modem) IS included in the monthly fee. I do think it's fair to pay what I pay ($40/month) for that. In comparison, Tivo maintains a server (possibly a very small server farm) with program listings. As you admit yourself, the cost of maintaining this service must be very minimal and should be absorbed in their cost.
Funny... I do a lot of TV watching and I always thought that anybody that spends hundreds of dollars to buy something, and then another $10 per month each month for it to keep on working the way it was intended to is an idiot.
My philosophy is that you either give the hardware away for free and charge monthly fees, or you make people pay for the hardware and be done with it. Anything that tries to have it both ways (satellite radio, DIVX - the DVD lookalike,...) is just not for me.
I won't even get into the always looming possibility of the company closing shop...
Re:Coming from a store owner...
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 2
You are not expected to accept Euros in Great Britain anymore than US merchants are expected to accept British Pounds. So I am not sure what you're trying to say.
As far as a point by point discussion of your post:
That's no different than accepting French Francs or Deutsche Mark. Don't complain about exchange fees - you British brought that on yourselves by NOT converting to the Euro. It is indeed your right, just don't complain about the consequences of still having to deal with exchange rates (which, yes, do fluctuate).
There is no such thing yet. They are investigating the possibility to do so. Way too early to bitch about this.
Well, that's what makes British people British:) Yes, you are member of the EU, but it just seems that you are because you're afraid to be left behind, not because you really want to.
See the first item.
Re:Picture of bills with US bill
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 2
To further clarify your statement, the coins have two sides. One side is common to all countries, the other is country specific and show something country specific. For example, the Belgian Euro coins show a profile of the King - as every Belgian has always done for as far back as I can remember. Think of them as the new quarters in the US.
they of course all have the same weigh, shape, etc so that you can use any of them in vending machines, etc.
I read about that a while back but I have never had that problem. And I have both the Linksys WAP and the Siemens phones. And it's not like they're far apart, I live in an apartment...
"If you are on an H1-B visa or otherwise not a permanent resident of the USA, you can get away without reporting most of your income."
This show an incredible ignorance of what an H1-B is. You MUST be a W2 employee to be H1-B by definition, in which case you will get automatic deduction. Sure, you can fail to file tax returns if that's what you mean, but that's not likely to save you a whole lot of money, if any).
The rest of your post sound like really poor advice, but I guess everyone is entitled to his/her opinion...
Well, you can still get the whole thing for free (as well as the updates) - it's all GPL stuff.
But you're making a good point. If you choose to subscribe to this thing, you'd be paying $100/year to maintain a piece of software. When with Windows you're paying $100 upfront, and the fat bandwidth download of updates is free (with the caveat that someday they'll stop supporting it and there won't be anymore updates).
I don't see this business model working at all. I can see paying $20/year for this, not $100. But you can't blame them for trying.
It's not a double standard, it's a different business model!
MS charges big money for the product and gives the software update subscriptions for free. (they still charge for support though...)
Ximian gives the product away, still gives you the software update for free if you don't mind slower downloads, but tries to make money on the side by providing a faster server to do so.
How is that a double standard? It's two different business models. You're trying to compare apples with oranges.
They are indeed jackasses for doing this without notice, however the reason I still think this is unenforcable is simply that you can runs these things on any port you want. Doesn't have to be port 80 for webserving - it's trivial for a client to specify another port. A little more complicated for FTP though as many client don't seem to give you the choice of specifying a port - but still.
Lucky you!
I used to have pretty decent bandwidth with comcast@home (although nowhere near your numbers) but it's gone way down with Adelphia. But it's still better than dialup and for some reason I can't get DSL (eventhough it's available in the area)
Well, yes, there is a cap, but even then that doesn't mean that they would be happy if you maxed the cap 24 by 7 - which you'd have the potential of doing if you ran a successful website on it (or shared mp3 through it or something).
You have to remember you share the network with everybody in your neighborhood and the neighorhoods are not sized to allow all the users to max the caps all at the same time... So, they do have to put some restrictions on usage - however, as I said, as long as you don't abuse it, nobody is going to pick a bone with you.
I have had two different cable providers so far (comcast@home and Adelphia - I moved from Philly to Pittsburgh) and they both have these clauses. With both providers I used VPN to "dial-in" to work, and I have run servers (FTP and Web) - although not full time. They can't block the ports because there are other (legitimate) use for them.
I think they put these clauses in their contract so that *IF* you abuse of your priviledges, they have the rights to pull the plug. And even then, the only way they'd know is if everybody on your block complained of piss poor performance, and they decided to start investigate who is sucking all the bandwidth.
I have never gotten a call, email or letter from the providers complaining about this. I am not going to worry about it.
Why I will not be listening to satellite radio anytime soon:
- It's a subscription model, and yet I have to buy the equipment which is not cheap (other than the one car manufacturer that includes it).
- It's a subscription model, yet there are commercials (on at least some channels)
- I have to dish out money for equipment and yet there is a good chance it will only work for less than a year. One company admitted that they have money to stay afloat until the end of next year. Which means, there is a good chance they will no longer exist a year from now since I think they're expectations on signing up 4.5 million subscribers is a bit optimistic.
Yikes. No thanks. You won't get me to take the gamble, at least not until they have been around for a couple years. Of course, if everybody thinks like me, they won't be around for a couple of years.
As a french-speaking Belgian, I can tell you that I was taught in school that you don't put accents on caps. Maybe it's not a hard rule and you can go either way. I do however remember playing with my dad's typewriter when I was a kid and there was no way to put an accent on a capital letter.
Slashdot Mirror
I could get from the content provider's websites for free for example (right about every TV channel has a website). I doubt very much THEY would care considering it is in their interest that I watch their channels.
Regardless, you're avoiding the central issue. They are not giving anyone a choice. If they did, who knows! Maybe some free provider (a la cddb) would pop up. Maybe the network provider would let the customer pull the info in some sort of XML format. Or maybe me and a bunch of friends would take turn to update our own database running on a home server. With enough people you'd only have to do it every once in a long while. There just is no saying what could happen...
Also the alledged high cost for them to harvest the data is probably in large part due that the network have little interest to help another company make money off their backs. If it was a free service (call it freelistings.org) - who knows, maybe the networks would make it a lot easier.
Bottom line. I won't buy an (expensive) piece of hardware that ties me in a specific service. But they way, what do you plan on doing if TiVo decides that their service is worth $25/month starting next month? Or $45 a year after that?
If their business model is to sell the service, they should give the hardware (even if I have to return it when I cancel - just like a cable box).
Well, previous poster wasn't talking about bug fixes but major upgrades to functionality ... i.e., something that was already cool got cooler, blah blak
... contrary to what you suggest, $10/month doesn't just get you listings. It gets you listings PLUS the functionality that comes with having regular listings PLUS the development of new functionality from a company that has been extremely responsive to customer demands/requests.
If you had read the rest of that paragraph, you would have seen that I have addressed that. I'll buy an upgrade if and when I want one. Just like I'll choose to upgrade my Windows box if and when I want to.
Also, context again
No. It gets you the listings. Everything else is software within the TiVo (which I bought- hardware and software) that parses and uses the listings. I refuse to rent software. Again, if they do come up with some amazing new feature that I must have, I would consider paying once for the software upgrade.
I have never said that TiVo should or shouldn't do anything. All I have said, is that I don't like it and I won't buy it. The bottom line, again, is that if I pay big bucks for a piece of hardware I expect to use anyway I see fit.
About the rest of you post - well, fine. It costs them more than I thought for this service. If you have number to back to up, I'd love to see them, however it's largely irrelevant. I don't want to have to use their service. I'd like to be able to use another service (let's call it freelistingsdb.org) or do it myself. This is a chicken and the egg problem here. Their cash burn rate is to maitain the servers, but of course you have no choice but to use their servers.
it's like buying a computer and expecting an ISP to give you Internet access for free
Not really. It's more like buying a computer and being told that you can only sign for this one overpriced ISP, and if you don't sign up, your computer can only be used as a calculator.
Or to use your GSM analogy, it's like buying an expensive GSM phone and be told you can only sign up to this one company at some ridiculous rate. Otherwise, all you can do is play "snake" on it.
Historically, when a device is tied to a specific service, one or the other is given away or GREATLY discounted (pennies on the dollar).
Tivo should be making its money from sellings its software to its hardware partners. Just like Microsoft sells Windows to the OEMs, just like Palm sells the PalmOS to Sony. If that's not enough to keep them afloat, they've negociated bad deals.
But it is the equivalent of a speedometer. Without the program guide, you're flying blind so to speak. And you have a glorified VCR with limited capacity and similar image quality (depending on what compression you choose).
The data is free. You can find it any number of places for free. It's just not free to get it from them. Which would be fine, if they gave you a choice to use another source and keep all the functionalities that are based on it.
Don't make it sound like the $10 goes mostly towards supporting some sort of elaborate infrastructure of theirs. It mostly goes towards their wallets since this is their business model.
Well, here we go! Now you understand!
I won't buy them! That is ALL I said, along with the reason why...
You are prevented from using competing other service. There is no option to use other services (free or otherwise).
I guess one could reverse engineer the data transfer or something, but quite frankly, I have no interest to reverse engineer my VCR.
And yes! If I pay $200 for some A/V equipment I want to be able to do everything forever (well, until the hardware dies anyway)! What in the world is wrong with that? Do you expect anything else from your VCR or your DVD for example? Why would the Tivo be any different? All the features are self contained - except for the channel guide downloads, and THAT is not worth $10/month or much of anything really.
I don't mind paying for the electricity that feeds the tivo (equivalent of the gas in your analogy) and if any of the hardware insides wears out from usage I have no problem paying for a replacement part (equivalent to the tires in your analogy).
But I don't expect to pay a fee every month so that the speedometer keeps working past the first few weeks I bought the car (the equivalent of having to pay a fee after the short trial period that comes with it).
Software bux fixes and customer service is something I expect to get for free. Certainly I have never paid for a "firmware" upgrade for any hardware I have ever bought. I wouldn't mind paying for new features, but not on a subscription basis. If I want the upgrade, I am ready to pay a one time fee (if it's small otherwise I'll probably live without the upgrade).
On the second point, even if I believe that it does cost them *ANY* money to collect the data you describe (channel lineups, etc) it would amount to pennies per customer (not $10/month) which should be built-in the price. Or better yet, like I suggested, they should let me choose where to get the lineup.
Don't make it sound like this $10/month supports the infrastructure. It doesn't. It's a money making scheme (I don't think anyone, even them, would deny it) and I am not willing to fall for it.
It used to be that TiVos (the first version) were functional enough without the service. Sure enough, if you bought one a few years ago, you are "grand-fathered" into that level of functionality. I could have lived with that, but unfortunately I missed my cue to buy it then. As their business model stands today, there is no way I would buy one for all the reasons described in the first post.
Well, good for you!! I know you were trying to be sarcastic, but many people DO make that choice (not as much in the US for lack of alternatives). Just like I make the choice to not buy a TiVo.
Of course, gas, tires, oil are really concrete/physical things not "services" that cost little to nothing to host so your analogy doesn't work anyway.
The only thing they provide is the channel programming. There is at least a couple of thing they could have done with that:
1. make the software configurable in such a way that it could download the program info for whatever source you want (including my own server at home if I choose to). There are plenty of places on the net you can get the stuff from.
2. Like you suggest, take the "free appliance" route and take the risk that a small minority of people will hack it and take the loss on those people. The fact that most of these "free applicance" companies have indeed failed is because of a poor product (which I don't think Tivo is) not because of handful of slashdot types hacked their products.
Of course Tivo's business model should not be outlawed. Who in the world suggested that it should? All I said, is that I don't like it and therefore I won't buy it. You have a problem with that?
The fact of the matter is that Tivo makes the software (although a big chunk of it is GPLed) and, since they don't actually make the boxes (that's THEIR choice), their main revenue stream should be licensing the technology to Philips, Sony and whoever else uses it. If that's not the case, that's their problem.
As far as you PC + internet analogy, it is flawed for two reason:
1. PC cames before the internet. You're assuming that the only reason I bought my PC was to get on the internet. In comparison, the Tivo without the service in rather useless - especially after version 2 of their software.
2. Providing me with an internet connection DOES cost real money. In my case, I have a cable modem. There is the wire, the wire maintenance, the email/news server farms ***AND*** the hardware (cable modem) IS included in the monthly fee. I do think it's fair to pay what I pay ($40/month) for that. In comparison, Tivo maintains a server (possibly a very small server farm) with program listings. As you admit yourself, the cost of maintaining this service must be very minimal and should be absorbed in their cost.
Funny... I do a lot of TV watching and I always thought that anybody that spends hundreds of dollars to buy something, and then another $10 per month each month for it to keep on working the way it was intended to is an idiot.
...) is just not for me.
My philosophy is that you either give the hardware away for free and charge monthly fees, or you make people pay for the hardware and be done with it. Anything that tries to have it both ways (satellite radio, DIVX - the DVD lookalike,
I won't even get into the always looming possibility of the company closing shop...
As far as a point by point discussion of your post:
To further clarify your statement, the coins have two sides. One side is common to all countries, the other is country specific and show something country specific. For example, the Belgian Euro coins show a profile of the King - as every Belgian has always done for as far back as I can remember. Think of them as the new quarters in the US.
they of course all have the same weigh, shape, etc so that you can use any of them in vending machines, etc.
I read about that a while back but I have never had that problem. And I have both the Linksys WAP and the Siemens phones. And it's not like they're far apart, I live in an apartment...
I must be lucky I guess.
You probably meant this link: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/zeitgeist-oc t.html which is the october issue. There is no info on OS or browser on the link you posted.
"If you are on an H1-B visa or otherwise not a permanent resident of the USA, you can get away without reporting most of your income."
This show an incredible ignorance of what an H1-B is. You MUST be a W2 employee to be H1-B by definition, in which case you will get automatic deduction. Sure, you can fail to file tax returns if that's what you mean, but that's not likely to save you a whole lot of money, if any).
The rest of your post sound like really poor advice, but I guess everyone is entitled to his/her opinion...
Well, you can still get the whole thing for free (as well as the updates) - it's all GPL stuff.
But you're making a good point. If you choose to subscribe to this thing, you'd be paying $100/year to maintain a piece of software. When with Windows you're paying $100 upfront, and the fat bandwidth download of updates is free (with the caveat that someday they'll stop supporting it and there won't be anymore updates).
I don't see this business model working at all. I can see paying $20/year for this, not $100. But you can't blame them for trying.
It's not a double standard, it's a different business model!
MS charges big money for the product and gives the software update subscriptions for free. (they still charge for support though...)
Ximian gives the product away, still gives you the software update for free if you don't mind slower downloads, but tries to make money on the side by providing a faster server to do so.
How is that a double standard? It's two different business models. You're trying to compare apples with oranges.
They are indeed jackasses for doing this without notice, however the reason I still think this is unenforcable is simply that you can runs these things on any port you want. Doesn't have to be port 80 for webserving - it's trivial for a client to specify another port. A little more complicated for FTP though as many client don't seem to give you the choice of specifying a port - but still.
Lucky you!
I used to have pretty decent bandwidth with comcast@home (although nowhere near your numbers) but it's gone way down with Adelphia. But it's still better than dialup and for some reason I can't get DSL (eventhough it's available in the area)
Well, yes, there is a cap, but even then that doesn't mean that they would be happy if you maxed the cap 24 by 7 - which you'd have the potential of doing if you ran a successful website on it (or shared mp3 through it or something).
You have to remember you share the network with everybody in your neighborhood and the neighorhoods are not sized to allow all the users to max the caps all at the same time... So, they do have to put some restrictions on usage - however, as I said, as long as you don't abuse it, nobody is going to pick a bone with you.
I have had two different cable providers so far (comcast@home and Adelphia - I moved from Philly to Pittsburgh) and they both have these clauses. With both providers I used VPN to "dial-in" to work, and I have run servers (FTP and Web) - although not full time. They can't block the ports because there are other (legitimate) use for them.
I think they put these clauses in their contract so that *IF* you abuse of your priviledges, they have the rights to pull the plug. And even then, the only way they'd know is if everybody on your block complained of piss poor performance, and they decided to start investigate who is sucking all the bandwidth.
I have never gotten a call, email or letter from the providers complaining about this. I am not going to worry about it.
Why I will not be listening to satellite radio anytime soon:
- It's a subscription model, and yet I have to buy the equipment which is not cheap (other than the one car manufacturer that includes it).
- It's a subscription model, yet there are commercials (on at least some channels)
- I have to dish out money for equipment and yet there is a good chance it will only work for less than a year. One company admitted that they have money to stay afloat until the end of next year. Which means, there is a good chance they will no longer exist a year from now since I think they're expectations on signing up 4.5 million subscribers is a bit optimistic.
Yikes. No thanks. You won't get me to take the gamble, at least not until they have been around for a couple years. Of course, if everybody thinks like me, they won't be around for a couple of years.
Academie Francaise (sorry to lazy to figure out the cedille and the accent on my US keyboard :)
As a french-speaking Belgian, I can tell you that I was taught in school that you don't put accents on caps. Maybe it's not a hard rule and you can go either way. I do however remember playing with my dad's typewriter when I was a kid and there was no way to put an accent on a capital letter.