We just upgraded to Tivo Plus. If it had been up to me, then I would have let the free trial lapse and stuck with Tivo Basic. But my partner asserted that there was finally something that she could program to watch her shows and she wasn’t going to let it go away. And how could I argue with that?

Based on a sample size of one, I think that Tivo should get out of the hardware business and into the service business. In the long run, the only people who will make money selling PVR hardware are major consumer electronics companies. They’ve got the sales channels, the economies of scale and the deep pockets. Because Tivo was first, they had to sell hardware. But the value of Tivo is in the user experience not the hardware. The sooner they bite the bullet and write off hardware, the better off they’ll be.