If you are complaining about the $800 the box costs, suck it up. Either it is worth it, in which case you should buy it, or it is not, and you should not. For me, television without TiVo is unwatchable, so really the question (for me) is whether this makes HD worth buying now. There is not a lot of content, and this same box will cost half this price in a year and a half, so there is an argument to waiting. Smaller HDTVs are now within my price range, though, so there is an argument to buying now. In either case, it comes down to what it is worth to me.
That said, the lifetime offer will end at the end of the year, and the price is unlikely to drop in that time. Thus, the opportunity cost of the subscription rears its ugly head. If it drops by half in a year and change, it would take two years to recover the opportunity cost you are paying to get it today, and so if you are keeping this thing for three years, you break even.
As far as the $800 price, this is about what the tech inside the shiny box costs, after you add typical retail markup. The box apparently costs about $500 wholesale, which is what best buy and circuit city pay. You do not stab your retailers by discounting MSRP, and so they have to sell them for $800 at their own store, assuming that we have the retail prices about right. Again, is that worth it to you? It might be for me, but I am still a bit on the fence.
I suspect that the increased margin on their own sales is why they are only offering a lifetime transfer for sales from their web store. They get more up-front cash, to make up for the lack of $14 a month service fees. Fair? Perhaps - the customers who go to a big box retailer are choosing to direct more of the money to best buy/circuit city, in exchange for keeping more of it.
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If you are complaining about the $800 the box costs, suck it up. Either it is worth it, in which case you should buy it, or it is not, and you should not. For me, television without TiVo is unwatchable, so really the question (for me) is whether this makes HD worth buying now. There is not a lot of content, and this same box will cost half this price in a year and a half, so there is an argument to waiting. Smaller HDTVs are now within my price range, though, so there is an argument to buying now. In either case, it comes down to what it is worth to me.
That said, the lifetime offer will end at the end of the year, and the price is unlikely to drop in that time. Thus, the opportunity cost of the subscription rears its ugly head. If it drops by half in a year and change, it would take two years to recover the opportunity cost you are paying to get it today, and so if you are keeping this thing for three years, you break even.
As far as the $800 price, this is about what the tech inside the shiny box costs, after you add typical retail markup. The box apparently costs about $500 wholesale, which is what best buy and circuit city pay. You do not stab your retailers by discounting MSRP, and so they have to sell them for $800 at their own store, assuming that we have the retail prices about right. Again, is that worth it to you? It might be for me, but I am still a bit on the fence.
I suspect that the increased margin on their own sales is why they are only offering a lifetime transfer for sales from their web store. They get more up-front cash, to make up for the lack of $14 a month service fees. Fair? Perhaps - the customers who go to a big box retailer are choosing to direct more of the money to best buy/circuit city, in exchange for keeping more of it.
Scott