TiVo Forgets What Made Them Popular

I’ve never used TiVo.  By the time I was financially stable enough to enjoy features such as pausing live TV, every cable company in the US offered their own version of a digital video recorder (DVR).  This made TiVo kinda pointless for me, though my own experiences with DVR help me to better appreciate why TiVo was so popular when it hit the scene.

These days, though, I’m forced to wonder if TiVo remembers why they were so popular.  Because when a service that allows you to fast forward past commercials starts putting commercials INTO your experience, you create pissed off customers more easily than creating a batch of sea monkeys.

And yet that’s just what TiVo has done.  All Series 2 customers now have the displeasure of having text ads appear on their screen whenever they pause.  Whether it be live or recorded television, viewers can now welcome unwanted soliciting to fill the void.  Don’t be surprised when this kind of subversive tactic makes its way into the Series 3 and TiVo HD boxes.  Also don’t be surprised when customers start questioning why they put up with additional advertising when local cable providers are offering DVRs for free.

[Gizmodo]