You don't have to pay a monthly fee...you can pay for "lifetime" service on Tivo once, and you never pay them again....
I looked at that years ago. It is tied to the unit you buy. If that unit fails, you are screwed. And the tivo at the time only came with a 90 day warrenty. So, buy the unit and the lifetime service and after 90 days you could need to do it all over again!
