This article seems to depic the tragedy that is becoming TiVo.  Like the authors comparision to Toy Story 2 - It [TiVo] may end up alone, forgotten, way up on the shelf.  In the age of renegading against the big guys like Microsoft, DVR owners don't seem to care if they are being had by the major cable companies.  They assume they have a TiVo or at least a TiVo-like piece of hardware but in reality they have a digital VCR that's just as dumb as a VHS recorder.  Also people gripe and complain about TiVo's monthly fee of $12.95 but don't blink an eye for Comcast's $6.95 fee.  BTW, with DirecTV the TiVo fee is only $5.00.

I read the guys article and I begin to wonder if/when I will hit the place to put my Tivo up on the shelf.  The difference for me will be  that I will most likely ditch TV all together unless I can have a time-shifting piece of equipment that can track down shows for me and not just record what I specifically tell it to record.

"...the actual DVR is an unsatisfying clone of my old TiVo. Its user interface is as intuitive as a game of bridge. The remote control looks like a space shuttle control panel. Bizarrely, to get to the actual DVR menu, you have to bypass the white “MyDVR” button and hit a small red button called “menu”—twice. And recording an actual series requires a dangerous quest through a subterranean network of screens. "

"...Comcast and Motorola don’t seem to have given the user experience much thought. Perhaps they didn’t need to. Companies have long used their superior market position to elbow out an innovative upstart—consider Microsoft and its tactics against the Netscape browser."