TiVo Squeezed By Cable Companies, Best Product Doesn't Always Win
TiVo has never been in an enviable position. They are kick-ass innovators that have never gotten to reap the rewards that come with that. Comcast and Time Warner have leveraged their market position to undermine TiVo's opportunity.
It's painful for the innovator and the consumer when the best product doesn't win. Here's a good summary of the situation from NewTeeVee: http://newteevee.com/2009/12/23/tivo-blames-big-cable-for-blocking-set-top-innovation/
2 comments
Dec 26, 2009
CarriBugbee said...
I still have the first gen Tivo and was an avid evangelist for the product. I personally helped many people set their Tivo up (which wasn't easy if you had a lot of devices), but it seems the cable companies squeezed them out by not making it easy for Tivo to do something as simple as change channels. This was always a bugaboo.But Tivo lost my biz when I decided to take a short (2-month) hiatus from TV in summer '08 and they turned my unit into a brick once I cancelled my service. I had planned to resume as a customer until they did that. But it pissed me off so much (after I calculated I'd paid them about $1,500 over the lifetime of my contract), I swore I'd never come back.
@CarriBugbee
* the iPhone may in time be the exception that proves the rule that the best product never wins....