Big Pickles

CNN has an article on TiVo Guilt today. The New York Times had a similar op-ed two years ago. So it's not a new thing.

It's very similar to Netflix Guilt. And isn't this just the modern version of letting your newspapers and magazines and books stack up unread?

The deal with TiVo is that you have limited hard drive space to work with, so you have to manage it. If your TiVo is full when you go to bed, then it will start deleting shows to make room for new stuff, and because you haven't meticulously accounted for every contingency and programmed it accordingly, its algorithms might cause it to prioritize what to get rid of first slightly differently than you might have. In other words: Unmitigated Disaster.

So when you watch two hours of TV and maybe even delete a few shows you're not interested in, you feel like you've had a productive evening. You've freed up plenty of space so that TiVo doesn't have to take matters into its own hands, and you can rest easy until the next day. If, on the other hand, you watch a Netflix movie, you've accomplished nothing. Two hours, utterly wasted. TiVo is still full, and getting fuller. Soon it will start deleting things, and then you run the risk of Missing A Show.

(Of course, by Missing A Show I mean that you will have to download it the next day or watch it on hulu. We're not barbarians, after all.)

Your Netflix movies don't give you the same "use it or lose it" ultimatum. They'll patiently sit there and wait until you're ready to watch them. No late fees, remember? Sure, there's this nagging feeling that you're not getting your money's worth if you don't watch at least four movies per week, but that's nothing when TiVo is holding an episode of Numb3rs hostage.