A bit of back story on my relationship with Tivo. I have been Tivo’s biggest champion since September 21st, 2002. There was a weird accident the day before with a wallpaper razor requiring a tetanus shot. I refused to get it because Firefly premiered that night. So, on my way home from the hospital the next day, I stopped and got my first Tivo. It instantly became part of my life, and an indispensable piece of technology.

I’ve owned 5 different Tivo’s, up through and including the Tivo HD. I LOVED the ability to get the cable box out of my entertainment center, and making the cable company come out and install my CableCard, all the while with me shunning their crappy DVR.

About a year later, Charter informed me that they found a way around the requirements of providing a cable card by moving to switched digital – thus requiring me to have a converter box. Actually, they didn’t say that at all…they tried to tell me it was for my own good (even though it was a bandwidth-saving measure that only benefited them. No need to upgrade the pipes when you can just screw your customers). It never worked, and nullified the elegance of the single-box solution, so I eventually caved and just got the vastly-inferior Charter DVR.

I was already on a lifetime plan with the HD, so no big deal there – $99 made it work forever with no more fees, so I didn’t even think about it until I was reviewing the credit card I charged the Tivo service on and realized that I’ve been paying for a bedroom DVR that I haven’t had hooked up in 6 months.(My bad). So I went out to the web site and tried to cancel, before remembering “Oh yeah, I can do everything to my account EXCEPT cancel service. Crap.”

Dialed up, and here I sit, over an hour later. “Due to high call volumes, we’re experiencing a longer than normal wait…”, blah blah blah. Since I’ve apparently got nothing but time, I started reflecting on my experience with Gold’s Gym a few weeks back. It’s the same run around that everyone else gets – canceling requires you to spend so much personal capital in time and energy that you eventually decide to say screw it and try again next time you see it on a bill.

So, what does this say about Tivo?

It says that Tivo is shady, just like every gym out there that makes you sit through a high-pressure sales pitch to get out of your membership. It says that Tivo lacks confidence in its service, and would rather make a customer jump through hurdles in an attempt to make you say “screw it” and try again some other time. It says that Tivo is disrespectful of its customers, even loyal evangelists like myself. It says “I hold you in such contempt that I would waste two hours of your time because you have the temerity to not want me.”

I have recommended Tivos to everyone that would listen for almost a decade, and that ends right here. Tivo, you will never see another penny from me, and you will never get my good will as a customer back. You’ve just squandered something far more valuable to you than my $12.95 a month – you pissed away someone who recommended your service passionately, even after it became something I couldn’t personally use.

Good game, Tivo!