mattwnz:

 

tdgeek:

 

Tivo is proprietary, everyone else, and there are many use standard Freeview. While there are only two brands that I know of that do FV PVR's, many do FV decoders, its standard, a NZ standard. If you use a proprietary device, that is American, licenced to an AustraliaNZ  company, that in itself is a risk. 

 

 

 

 

Yes there is a risk. Maybe there needs to be more consumer protection for this sort of thing, with revised laws, as this sort of thing is happening more and more with 'cloud' based products. I have been affected by it at 4 times now in recent times. For two of the products, I returned to the retailer and got either refund or a replacement product. One product was a weather station which grabbed data from around the world, and pushed it to an LCD display. They decided to switch off their weather server, and it stopped working. The overseas manufacturer was offering people discount off a new model as compo, but that offer had since expired.
For the third product, a Sony Smart TV, I decided to live with it, because I didn't use the smart functions enough, and the TV is still usable with my Tivo (a little bit ironic), and chromecast . The Tivo is the latest affected by this, and more and more people are going to have problems like this in the future. The best companies though don't let this sort of thing happen. Old apple products could suffer the same problem , but apple keep supporting them, even though they aren't being paid for this. eg As far as I am aware the newest version of itunes will still work with the original apple ipods. I would imagine the uproar if older models of iphone were rendered unusable. Although it will happen eventually to very old models when the 2G network is switched off, (although that would be caused by a third party provider and not apple).

 

It is a little like these 'lifetime guarantees' being offered for products,eg saucepans, when you often find in the small print it only applies for the 'expected life of the product, and they don't expect saucepans to last more than 15 years. etc. 

 

This to me is the central issue and it is far wider than TIVO.

It is likely that come November 1st unless Dr Tivo and the Whirlpool Oz crew find a way, that all TIVO will become redundant and if you use them you will be bugged to death by the incessant reminder to 'phone home'.

It will drive you nuts. I used my spare TIVO at my beach bach over summer to replay saved programmes with no internet, so I have a taste of what is to come. You will turn it off.

So the outcome here is to make TIVO the poster child of the scenario you have painted. It won't save TIVO, but it may help consumers understand what is happening around them with claimed life time product and service support and how it is a slow drive down to Tivo-ville where they take the keys away.

It will happen across many other products and services, because today, it is the industry standard.