On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 smac at visi.com wrote: > Would that be a <shameless plug> ;oD > > We don't have a lot of funds for this sort of thing. It's sort of a weird thing > to sell something and require a subscription to a service to use it. I'm not > much for this sort of marketting sort of like snake oil sellers. Come on Sam, it runs Linux...you know you want it :) They're doing it this way so they don't have to charge like $600 for the unit, which far less people would be inclined to buy. This is a business model that many companies are trying to follow, not just Tivo. King Gillette pioneered it when he more or less gave away a razor and then sold disposable blades at a considerable profit (ever get a Mach-3 in the mail for free? I get about 1 every six months). The inkjet printer business is the same, as is a lot of commercial software. Heck, even sweet, lovable Pez is running the same scam! Even Redhat is an example - give away the product, and make your money on recurring support costs. Same with MySQL and recently even Snort has implemented a fee-based subscription to it's rule base. No one wants to sell a product anymore. Everyone wants the recurring revenue stream. For shareholders, a subscriber is worth a lot more than a single-unit purchase. > I don't like TV myself I feel TV is a waste of time. I guess for a TV person > research on the topic of the day would be no fun. Maybe you'd change your mind if you watched some women's billiards? :) So, want me to make an offer on that 40-hour unit? I see new ones on Ebay going from $35 - $55.