When Forced "Upgrades" Bring You Down

Viadd sent us an interesting article about unwanted upgrades. Its a little ranty, but it basically surrounds ReplayTV "Upgrading" their units by changing a feature in a way that Tog thinks is worse (and I'd tend to agree). With more software becoming subscription based, the line between bug fix, feature enhancement, and removal of features is going to get more blurry. I don't think that this particular example is the best, but this is really important to think about. Should we pay to remove bugs? What about when "Features" are trojaned along with the bugfix that we don't want? And what about when every device in your house is computerized? How does that amplify the problem? And what about when its a device like your tivo which upgrades automatically, leaving you no way out?