[willwagner]

I don't know how TiVo feels, but I always thought their lifetime subscriptions were a good way to seed their initial customer base. Lifetime is a little misleading because it's tied to the TiVo hardware, not the lifetime of the customer, but I still think it's relevant. TiVo started with a big problem of knowing they had a product that people would love if they tried it; in that instance, getting people past a hurdle of paying of monthly costs kind of makes sense, especially if they become devoted customers who tell their friends. I'm sure it also didn't hurt their cash flow.

[ticks]

Even then, lifetime subscriptions were rendered useless in the UK when TiVo dropped support for the original product and teamed up with a cable company. So it was neither a lifetime subscription for the hardware nor the customer.

[icefox]

On the flip side I am still using my first generation tivo because I have a lifetime on it and if I get a new device I would have to buy a new lifetime subscription.

[epc]

I don't know what their current policy is but we've rolled our initial Tivo S1 "lifetime" subscriptions over to S2 and now one S3/Premiere Tivo. Seems to be an occasional special they do.