When your receiver becomes obsolete, do you expect a free new one?
No, but Dish has a bad history of broken promises with the 942. So many promises and sales pitches as to what the receiver is capable of delivering, and systematically failing to deliver on each and every one. We purchased the 942 in November 2005, after consulting with their CSRs and watching their "Tech Forum" where the company announced MPEG4 is not ready for prime-time and that MPEG2 was how they were proceeding in the near future. The 942 was at the time the only HD DVR receiver Dish had available, and they only allowed customers to purchasing the receiver (assuming you wanted an HD DVR and wanted to stay with Dish over cable/Direct TV). A month later Dish does a complete 180 and in Charlie Chat announced they will no longer add any new MPEG2 HD feeds. All of a sudden in December 2005, their "Premier HD DVR Receiver" is forever frozen in time never to gain another HD feed... Dish's answer to our concerns when we called to find out how to get the newer HD channels has been "too bad".
They continue to use the stupid analogy about how cell phones get upgraded you don't automatically get the new features. Of course not, but the old phone works just as well as it did on the day it was purchased. And if after you buy it a new area code is brought online, the old phone can call those numbers just as well as a newly purchased phone. If the cell company all of a sudden decided... Ok, everyone with XXX model cell phone can no longer call phone numbers in New Mexico... Or those phones won't work between the hours of 10 pm and 4 am.... then the cell companies would have a problem.
Even when the cellular networks had their analog shutoff a while ago, the migration was clearly planned and they stopped selling analog phones for many many many years in order to allow for an orderly transition. For the tiny fraction of analog phone that still were in production at the time of the cut off, those customers had large number of choices of free (IE, free as in no cost, and no monthly lease fee) digital models to switch to.
Do you expect a new digital TV to replace your old analog one, again- for free?
This is a poor analogy. The analog to digital conversion has been in the works for many years and planned out to allow digital televisions to gain market share as analog TVs were pulled from the shelves and phased out. And those who still own analog TV, they can still receive their broadcast signals via a converter box. In no time is a person who invested in the purchase of a TV going to lose the ability to use that TV and it will work as it did when it was purchased.
Additionally, as is it with most equipment, once a TV is purchased from a manufacturer that is the end of the relationship (aside from warranty and repair support) between the consumer and the manufactured. The customer is not required to sign a contract to use the TV, nor is the TV manufacturer in the business of providing content for the TV to display. We don't have to pay the TV company a fee to use the TV on a month to month basis and they are not providing any back end services which are required for the TV to work. If the manufacturure should go bankrupt, the TV does not instantly stop working.
Conversely, lets say a cable company required their customers to buy and use their particular brand of TV to watch their cable signal, and then one year later decided to turn off their video signal unless they bought a new TV from the company... In that scenario, then yes the company should be expected to replace the equipment their customers were forced to purchase.
Appliances only last so long.
Exactly, but appliances and such also have a certain life expectancy (baring product failures and malfunctions) which is a factor in ones decision as to whether to invest money in the equipment. When a person purchases a cell phone, tv, car, etc, they expect the function of the device will have some useful lifetime (assuming it's properly maintained/repaired) in order to justify the purchase cost over time. And the function of that equipment is not reduced or taken away because a newer model is announced.
What is the typical life expectancy of a Satellite receiver? I don't know what the industry norm is on this, but when we did our math for the cost analysis we expected a 4 year use. Obviously we were way wrong with this estimate. In less than 6 months Dish started adding HD channels that the 942 would never be able to receive. And in less than 3 years, Dish is going to start turning off the capabilities of the box that were available on the day we bought it. Clearly (as we have known since early 2006) the purchase of the 942 was a mistake. We would have come ahead significantly by switching providers and switching back once Dish got their act in order. Oh well, I guess that was the price we paid in 2005 for not wanting to go through yet another holiday season with our nice HDTV's connected to the crappy Dish SD DVRs.... Which reminds me, those old TV still work today even though they don't have HDMI inputs. Of course, we get more HD content on those sets from our rabbit ears than Dish 942 can deliver to them.
Dish doesn't have to do anything. They are doing what they feel is appropriate, to retain the maximum number of customers at the lowest cost to all the remaining customers.
Very true. Dish is a business and they will do what they feel is best for their company and it's shareholders. With the increasing frequency of customer complaints and horror stories that satellite company consumers are experiencing, clearly customer care is not a priority for Dish Networks anymore.
In 2005 Dish was badly trailing their competition in HD support, and today still do. We unfortunately took Dish on their word in the November 2005 tech forum that they were working hard on catching up with their competition and that their HD packages were going to remain on MPEG2 for the near term. This company announces so much vaporware in their Charlie Chats and Tech Forums, it's difficult to trust anything they say anymore.
Luckily the competition is still strong... There is little to no opportunity cost to switch if Dish starts to cripple the 942. With no contract, no rain fade, and the ability to upgrade equipment at any time at no charge, cable is an attractive alternative. If Dish can only stay price competitive by having their customer gamble on whether Dish is able to back the services on the equipment they sell, there are clearly better and more successful business models out there. There certainly are plenty of examples of companies who know they must treat their customers with respect when their business plans necessitate a change that cause them to fail to live up to their promises.