Irrelevant Technology?

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Eight years ago I received a gift that would change my life. One word = TiVo.

Anyone who has been anywhere near the Ediger home over the course of the last eight years has likely heard the “TiVo Tour.” I referred enough people to TiVo simply by sharing my enthusiasm and passion to have enough referral points to get two brand new TiVos over the years. I loved TiVo so much that my personal domain name for a long time was tivoaddict.com. You get the point.

The common denominator of all of those things? Past tense.

This week we cancelled our TiVo subscription. It has been a slow parting of the ways that began two years ago when we first got HD - a move that forced us to look elsewhere since TiVo has no satellite/HD/DVR solution. At the time, we actually signed up for cable so that we could buy an HD TiVo. We regretted that decision within a couple of days (Charter sucks), switched back to DirecTV, bought a DirecTV HD DVR, and have never looked back.

For us, TiVo is irrelevant technology. It moved from the cutting edge to the unfortunate position of having to defend itself in the face of multiple DVR options. You’re not in a good place as a technology company when your customers have to convince themselves that paying for a premium service that looks awfully similar to a free (or inexpensive) option is worth it.

TiVo, luckily, saw the writing on the wall years ago. Rather than staking their claim on being able to win the above argument in people’s minds, they’ve continually evolved and reinvented themselves. They are now positioning themselves as “more than a DVR” (the technology they invented) as they try to lay claim to the set-top media box space.

‘Relevant technology’ is an easy box to fit into. The defacto landing place of ‘what’s new’ is on the cusp of what makes our lives easier and better. If anything, most new technology makes us question how far behind the curve we are, even when we’re not sure we really need what it’s pitching.

But ‘irrelevant technology’ is not simply an oxymoron in the likes of ‘accordian music,’ ‘second best,’ or ‘postal service.’ When technology gets to the place of no longer contributing to a better now or a more effective you, it becomes irrelevant.

So, I say a fond farewell to an old friend and am reminded of the fact that, as much as I love technology, the ‘new & hip’ are too easily, and quickly, forgotten.

Posted 03.17.2010

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