Not a surprise for Roku. The company has been getting progressively worse in the last few years and their enshittification is accelerating. Their recent forced download of an update that requires users to agree to arbitration to even use our TVs was intended to ultimately take control of those TVs completely away from the people who own them.
Right now it’s possible to block Roku’s static ads and presumably the autoplaying ones using a local DNS server like Adblock Home or Pihole, but it’s only a matter of time before Roku blocks everything unless we watch the ads they are trying force down our throats. I’m already in the process of obsoleting all 5 of our Roku devices.
It has taken Roku years to build up enough market share to allow this kind of behavior and it will take years for the market to abandon them. Their executives will claim ignorance as to why users are walking away when it finally hits their bottom line.
Whomp whomp. You get what you pay for.
this is the worst, next they’re gonna put ads on cars
Have I got horrible news for you
@surph_ninja urgh
Stellantis is already doing this on new cars in the US. (Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Maserati, FiAT, etc) Soon as you press the brakes and come to a stop ads play on your infotainment system. Have the car in park? Yep more ads.
Bro they already tried charging you monthly sub for unlocking seat heating functionality… if they are not already here, you can bet they are coming.
You know I only ever get more glad that I didn’t learn to drive and went with cycling instead. It started due to not being able to afford it, now I won’t own their shit and I will be happy.
Just wait, they will find a way to make biking just as shitty
How? There are no electronics in the first place.
I’m sure “smart bikes” will come soon
Apple TV for the win
If you think another private company with profit on their mind is safe, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
It’s not that they won’t do it. It’s that they currently don’t so it’s a good choice.
When they add ads, then we can find something else. I’m on Roku now but have been increasingly annoyed by the increase in ads.
Or just… don’t. Self hosting video content isn’t that hard, then you have full control.
I do. But I also see a need to support content creators.
You can support content creators without streaming services. I buy and rip DVDs and Blurays, which directly supports them.
Apple has absolutely no interest in injecting ads like this. That’s not their business model. Apple has a thousand things wrong but it’s reasonable to assume they aren’t going to pull this kind of rug pull.
I definitely think Apple is less susceptible to this, but people seem to forget that Apple literally has an ads business.
Look at the ads in Apple news and in a couple of other places. Apple isn’t immune to injecting ads into the UX of their products.
Hasn’t Apple seriously considered the ad business in the past? I think I saw a video about it years ago. Most likely, they will switch their strategy as soon as it makes financial sense to do so.
Apple has some serious catching up to do with enshitification on the appletv end. I think they are going to really blow our minds when they finally release a new appleTV. It’s quite overdue and I’m guessing they are cooking up a doozy for us!
My predictions : still don’t fix bit pass audio issue, eliminate ethernet port, crappier remote that still has no back lighting, siri/ appleai is everywhere but only makes things more frustrating, and who knows - maybe ads!!
Like I said, lots to complain about. But intrusive ads is not really their style.
I love how Dolby content doesn’t work with my Hue sync box!
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1330127/apple-ad-revenue-worldwide/
They still have an ad business, and ads are what companies turn to when times get tough. There’s no guarantees that Apple will stay on top for other reasons, and to assume such a thing will never happen is truly foolhardy.
It’s like believing Valve will be the same after Gabe Newell dies.
Further, Apple relies deeply on TMSC and since the US is basically in a nosedive of idiocy and protectionist tariffs, there’s a significant chance their supply line for their chips could be deeply impacted, and by extension, their profits from their computing products. Whether from tariffs or China taking over Taiwan, Apple could easily get fucked out of luck fast.
Didn’t say Apple doesn’t have ads
No, you implied that they’ll never ever ever never ever in a million years turn to their ad business to supplant lost sales elsewhere and that related things couldn’t happen to impact their sales. Which is a bogus and easily disproven line of thought.
bro, you’re projecting and read all that in the other poster’s reply on your own.
chill and rebuild binutils and clang from source again
I did nothing of the sort. You’re projecting all sorts of stuff onto what I said. I said they would not inject ads like this. In this insanely intrusive manner or as a flagrant rug pull. That’s not how they operate.
That’s not how they operate.
That’s literally the implication that I’m talking about that you say I’m projecting onto this. You don’t know the future, that can change.
As it stands now Apple TV for the win and I’d be legit shocked if Apple puts ads as you boot up an Apple TV.
thank goodness pi hole can block the majority of roku ad sources
Won’t hurt my feelings to throw their shit tv right in the trash.
So glad I ditched Roku. My modified Onn box (with an open source, ad-free launcher) is so much better.
I got to know more about your setup. How much was the device and what software are you running?
Sure. The device I use is an Onn streaming a Android TV box. I think I got the 2023 4k streaming version and it was about $20, from Walmart. You can probably get cheaper models, but I wanted one with an Ethernet port.
Then I installed a couple of alternative launchers from the Play store on device. I also loaded F-Droid as well (though I had to do that directly through an apk). I can’t remember which launcher I went with in the end, but it was either FLauncher or Projectivity. They were both good.
The wrinkle here is that the OS defaults back to the default launcher (which has ads and a lot of clutter on it). But I used a free command line tool called adb to switch the default launcher off.
I’ve been very happy with the new setup. My kids (who use it all the time) occasionally complain that an app will crash while they are watching something, and take them back to the home screen/launcher. But I haven’t run into that, and it’s probably just them accidentally hitting a remote (which I know they accidentally do a lot).
I documented the process and posted them here, in another thread a few months ago.
Additional note: The default YouTube app isn’t very conducive to quick profile switching, which can be annoying. To switch profiles you basically have to go back to the OS level and do it there, then go back into the YouTube app. It’s an Android TV quirk. But I discovered that if you side-load the Amazon Fire version of the YouTube app onto the device, you can switch profiles within that version of the app, and it works just fine.
So glad I blocked my TVs access to the Internet at the router level. Never complainrd about not setting up a network if the network doesn’t work.
Why even connect the tv to your local network?
Casting, using your phone for a remote, so the popup for connecting goes away
What a goofy thing to ask. You know exactly why people use smart TVs on the Internet.
PiHole.
Almost downvoted instinctually as a reaction to the headline. Visceral reaction. I hate this beyond belief.
What’s the best alternative? I have a fire cube, and I’m getting sick of it. Apple TV? Is there a FOSS solution that’s close to the same quality interface?
Some good options already listed. But here’s another.
Hey an Android TV box (Onn brand or similar) and install an open source launcher on it, like Projectivity. You have to use adb to disable the default launcher after the new launcher is installed, otherwise it keeps defaulting back to the default one. But once don’t it’s smooth sailing. You have a dedicated streaming device with a remote control and a nice UI with zero ads on the home screen.
I have a Raspberry Pi 500 running PiOS that works well like a computer to just play things in browser. No ads or anything of course. But also no casting from a phone or anything
https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-bigscreen
A tv-like front end for Linux but the project doesn’t see enough support yet
TL; DR - No. But actually maybe, depending on what you’re looking for and what you can put up with.
Are you looking to access streaming services? Or are you okay with self-hosting?
The FOSS solutions that support streaming services are pretty janky IMO because they don’t have support from the service, so you’re probably better off hooking up a laptop running Linux and access stuff in a browser. I had Netflix working through Kodi on a Raspberry Pi, for example, but like I said, it was super janky. Maybe it’s better now, idk, but check out OpenELEC and Kodi. You’ll need some hardware to run it on.
If you can self-host your videos, Jellyfin is pretty great, and I think there are a couple more options. You’ll need to get the content yourself though and connect it to the TV somehow (e.g. the Jellyfin app if you have a smart TV).
The best is unironically to pirate and use something like Kodi on a SBC that can run libreElec.
For years I was a big fan of Roku. It represented a better value alternative from the big corporations pushing their own agenda like Google, Apple, Samsung, and Amazon. They made products that were intuitive and user oriented and carved out a very nice and stable market share for themselves because of it. Now they’re just leveraging their hardware relationships to transform the software into something terrible.
I used to look for tvs with Roku built in. Now I’ve disabled Roku features from my smart TVS and use a separate streaming device.
I think the issue is they hit market saturation and haven’t been able to develop any real revenue streams beyond the sale of devices (which is one time cost while maintenance and development constantly drain them of any profit).
I suspect the increased enshitification is because they need other revenue streams. Just take a look at their stock price and it doesn’t paint a great picture for them.
How did you disable the Roku OS?
I think it depends on the model, but there should be something in the power settings to change the startup device. I did a factory reset first to clear any network settings or user data, skipped the setup, and set it to startup on the HDMI input.
This is why I disconnected my parents Roku tv from the internet last year, when they started to get updates that wouldn’t download, and freeze the whole tv, i said enough is enough
Looking around Roku’s site, I found this email address: AdsPR@roku.com
I’m planning on giving them a brief but firm “oh hell no” letter. I wonder how many others will do the same 🤔
I emailed them to let them know I cancelled Disney+ and cited this specific ad and advertisement campaign through Roku as to why I cancelled the service.
Let’s make the companies who advertise this way feel pain.
none of this is a big deal, simply never connect your TV to the internet
I see this thrown around a lot.
90% of us watch Netflix, Plex, YT TV or some other streaming service, how do I watch these with 4k quality without connecting to the Internet? That’s just an unrealistic request for 90% of TV users.
Use a separate, not ad-riddled device plugged in via HDMI. If you have a game console it can do this.
I don’t know what’s good for Android TV boxes it used to be the NVIDIA Shield was a well regarded streaming device but it’s really old now. Google makes one (Google TV Streamer) and you can install a custom launcher if you’re a bit technical and the “suggested content” of the stock launcher bothers you. Same for other Android TV boxes.
Apple, like them or not, makes a really decent TV box with no system level ads and an interface that mostly stays out of the way.
Shield is very old, but it still works pretty well and unlike apple TV you can have true surround sound with bit pass audio.
Yeah but I wouldn’t recommend anyone go and buy one at this point.
Why?
Because it’s end of lifespan and you should spend your money on something that will at least get a few years of support and updates
What do you propose? I don’t feel like there’s really great options. I still prefer the shield.
If you have some technical knowhow, you can configure your router to let things like Netflix through, but not the rest of the OS. Or you can try your luck with PiHole or similar.
I personally do have the capabilities I’m just pointing out this is unrealistic for 99% of TV watchers.
You’re absolutely right. The better option is to get a TV without all that crap to begin such with.
I’m just don’t saying it’s an option, that’s all.
