Updates on Cloud DVR & Automatic Commercial Skip, Changes to TV Guide Subscription Accounts

Classic Bait and Switch.

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Well if you use today as a guideline, then they would have actually said: 4 Tuners? We’ll give you 4 guides for that today. But if you buy more tuners in the future, you’ll need to buy subs for them.

I think they certainly could have given a grace period for existing users. Let’s say for 1 year if you buy more hardware, they will comp you the extra guide sub to bump up your concurrent guides to work with their new software model.

And the funny thing is they would see a sales boost from existing users who want to lock in another guide with hardware they didn’t need to buy.

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If that number is so small, Tablo should have avoided the bait and switch tactics and ate the cost.

If people were taking advantage of the system, then add the LAN based subscription model. There would still be backlash, but a LOT LESS than there is now. Because what they did is sell you something, then go “nah, that was stupid, it’s not cost effective anymore, let’s jack up the price retroactively”.

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Remember the whole “unlimited” cell phone plans? When the carriers thought “o this was a bad idea, let’s retroactively cap what people can use”. If I recall, they lost in court and the cap can only apply for future subscribers.

I’m sure no one will actually sue Tablo over $150 guide fee, but that doesn’t make it any less shady what they just did.

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Hey look, another lie.

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Maybe it isn’t so small, neither of us can really say, hence my wondering. And maybe as a result of some civil discussion here they offer a compromise. But just knee jerk reacting like you are without much in the way of facts isn’t contributing much positive to the conversation.

No, it’s small. From @TabloTV on Facebook

the overall number of Tablo users with multiple units is low

All the facts have been posted in the blog and on FB.

We debated it a lot internally, but if we wanted to start rolling out new paid services it just wasn’t possible with the current account structure.

This wasn’t an “o crap we made a mistake” moment. They clearly spelled out the fact that they’re changing what they already sold to existing owners, they even gave a nice animated GIF as an example of how it’ll affect existing owners.

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Fair point, I should have been more clear. The above is what I’m specifically talking about. That’s a knee jerk reaction to this change.

Just like this change, if they make a change that makes other platforms more attractive to folks for their specific situation, those folks will be lost as customers. That’s a natural result of any change. For my situation, Tablo is still the best solution.

The above was hyperbole, obviously. But the point is still valid.

In your analogy, they stopped developing a specific platform, they didn’t take something away you already paid for. Apples and oranges. A more accurate analogy would be “what if they took the Android app off the market and forced everyone to uninstall it”. I would expect similar backlash.

I guess that’s where we disagree. I never purchased with multiple units in mind. For the majority of their users they haven’t changed anything with their current situation. To your analogy, they aren’t forcing anyone to do anything, much less removing the entire functionality.

To me it’s no different than setting quotas on heavy mobile data users. Everyone shouldn’t have to shoulder the additional cost of a few.

Having said that, I still think as some others have mentioned, a grace period to allow people with an existing until to one time add a 2 or 4 tuner unit (I’m really thinking the 2 tuner to 4 tuner scenario because I would guess the 4 tuner to 6/8 tuner scenario is much less frequent) and have it grandfathered seems fair since there was really not real notice given for this change.

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“So how many people are truly running multiple Tablos on the same LAN in one house?”
I have 3 Tablos each on a separate antenna system. Two of them are aimed at Seattle because I have 2Edge reception over a hill (as defined by TVfool). My third Tablo is aimed to the north to receive Vancouver stations by LOS (line of sight) and a PBS station. Generally I don’t miss any scheduled records even in bad weather.
I may replace broken Tablos in the future, but I will never need a fourth Tablo.

“I think this was more about blocking the “Netflix Problem” of people sharing subscriptions with their friends and family.”
On Netflix I pay for 2 streams at a time and this is what I am legally entitled to.
I own 2 houses in Washington State and a family member will often be in one house while I am at the other house. There is nothing wrong or illegal with using the two steams simultaneously from two different IP addresses. Limiting you to one IP address is why I dropped PlayStation Vue and I told them that is why I was dropping them.

I save about $100 a month using Tablo and SlingTV, and yes setting up the antennas was a pain, but I would do it again.

I have three tablos all in the same house, same LAN, and same antenna. I also have a hdhomerun.

Anyone who thought that a small company like Nuvyyo could always only charge $150 dollars for a lifetime subscription covering multiple devices, new devices, and their replacements plus new features on all devices has been hitting the pipe too much.

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I already brought this example up a few posts up : What you’re missing here is that the cell providers were sued by the FTC when it came to retroactively changing the terms for existing customers. Can cell provides add quotas for future users? Absolutely. For current users? Nope, sorry.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2014/10/ftc-sues-att-limiting-unlimited-data

When I bought a lifetime subscription it was a Canadian purchase and Canadian product. Has the FTC become international?

Fair point, and I added some additional support for a one time “grace” period to my previous reply.

Quite honestly, I think all that really frustrated me with your replies was the whole hyperbole part. I don’t see how it adds any constructive input to this situation and why it was necessary for an already divisive change.

So you’re saying that Tablo lied, over and over again (one example below):

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Nothing in the subscription stated that existing users got new features. They could have unbundled them and charged per feature and device.

Its obvious they had to figure out a way to offer additional services as pain free as possible. Additional services that weren’t even a twinkle in your eye when Tablo was announced years ago. Additional services that require infrastructure. As the service and hardware offerings mature and change this had to change along with it.

The fact that I can swap in new hardware on my lifetime subscription is still lightyears ahead of Tivo…

I knew they were going to have to charge for the Ad-skipping somehow to me this is the most pain free way… Same people complaining here would also be complaining if they had to pay a separate (most likely monthly) subscription for the ad-skipping.

Huh? I’m not asking for new features for free. What I am asking for is that I be allowed to add as many Tablo’s as I want to my account whenever I want to in the future (and yes, I know the limit is 10), because that’s what was sold to me and that’s what I paid for.

If Tablo came out and said “if you’re out of warranty, we can not give you commercial skip for free” that’s a different story. I never paid for unlimited lifetime updates.

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From a development standpoint it’s really not very painful bundling features. And tablo should have allowed for this on day one.

Going back to the late 1960’s most OS’s have used bit maps representing feature sets. We had one in the mid-1970’s that had 128 bits of feature set. Simple check at boot and installation time.