Yeah I liked them initially, but have since thrown out all their crap and bought Apple TVs.

Once Apple got Amazon prime streaming roku lost their only differentiating feature. The ads really annoyed me to the extent that I don’t care if they fail.

I have been on Roku forever now and I'm always wondering about these people freaking out about the ads there. It is no where close to the ad intrusion of YouTube. They are not animated, have no sound, and basically stay out of the way. It's like the shinning example of how to do ads.

Roku ads take up the entire right half of the main launch screen, visible every time you turn on the TV or change apps. They've recently started displaying branded ads that are even more intrusive, taking over the entire theme + wallpaper (I recall they did this for Mandalorian, Soul, some other big movie launches).

YouTube ads help fund content creators. Roku ads are being displayed on a stand alone device that I already paid $100 for.

Also, it's possible to disable that home screen ad, if you mess around in the secret settings screen.

Hit Home 5 times. Hit Up, Right, Down, Left, Up. You're now on a secret settings screen. I don't know what its purpose is, internal development? Channel development? Set Image Service to "Dev" Set Home Screen Ad Banner URL to "Demo2" Do a Reset/Refresh of cached settings. Go to main Settings/System and reboot for good measure.

When you get back to the Roku home screen you shouldn't see changing ads anymore, just a static black and white Apple AirPlay image.

I didn’t have the reset option for cached settings so I still have a large banner ad. Oh well cool stuff.

I've used this trick on a Roku 3 and a Roku 4 and it worked on both. If there's no "reset / clear cache" option for you on the secret settings screen, it might take a little while for any downloaded ads to expire.

WOW, it actually works. Amazing.

> YouTube ads help fund content creators

I feel that this is being too generous to YouTube considering things like these:

"YouTube will run ads on some creator videos, but it won’t give them any of the revenue" [1]

"YouTube Will Now Show Ads On All Videos Even If Creators Don’t Want Them" [2]

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/18/21573937/youtube-ads-cre...

[2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/11/18/youtube...

Those are both misleading headlines.

For the first headline, this has to do with channels that are too small to be in the partner program. Youtube still is service provided for free, allowing anyone to upload and share unlimited videos. It's ridiculous to think Youtube shouldn't be allowed to monetize said videos and recoup some money. But also each individual channel here probably makes a few pennies and is not worth it for them to setup a whole contract for.

The latter headline is about a recent issue where some creators force-disable all ads on their channel and instead insert their own sponsor ads in the video. This causes two issues, 1. premium members who pay to not get ads still end up getting them and 2. Youtube basically doesn't get a single penny from that channel. In such cases, I think it's also entirely fair for Youtube to make some money from a video being watched by millions and costing bandwidth.

> Those are both misleading headlines.

No they're not. Discrediting creators do not disprove anything stated in the headlines.

> But also each individual channel here probably makes a few pennies and is not worth it for them to setup a whole contract for.

So if YouTube is gathering every penny made by small (or in other words, most) creators, maybe it isn't fair to pretend that YouTube profiting is for some greater good while bashing competitors for doing the same.

> The latter headline is about a recent issue where some creators force-disable all ads on their channel and instead insert their own sponsor ads in the video.

That's an "issue" YouTube would rather people talk about. In reality, it is irrelevant as it applies to every single video uploaded to YouTube. It just serves to unfairly discredit creators. And before you ask, yes, there are people who made the conscious decision of not monetizing their videos that were impacted by YouTube's new policy[1].

[1]: https://larryjordan.com/articles/youtube-filmmakers-presumed...

Two things can be true at once. Youtube is a platform that needs to make money to exist, and it can also help support creators at the same time. No one claimed it was a charity for creators.

They are perfectly justified in making money off of any video on their platform. It's honestly astonishing to me that you think it's acceptable for a creator to be able to rake in thousands from their video, hosted entirely for free, while also blocking Youtube from making a single penny from the video to pay for the cost of operation.

> you think it's acceptable for a creator to be able to rake in thousands from their video, hosted entirely for free, while also blocking Youtube from making a single penny

Please don’t dictate what I think. That’s not at all what I actually wrote.

Second, if anyone is operating at a loss, it’s the small creators. YouTube, operated by one of richest company on this planet, is the one profiting both directly and indirectly from those creators’ work. I also can’t understand how anyone can claim small creators “only makes a few pennies” while “raking in thousands” at the same time.

> Please don’t dictate what I think. That’s not at all what I actually wrote.

Then please explain because either you agree that Youtube should be allowed to override the "no ads" checkbox for creators that run in-video ads, or you disagree with it. I don't really see a middle ground here.

> I also can’t understand how anyone can claim small creators “only makes a few pennies” while “raking in thousands” at the same time.

It's simple; as with literally everything else Google does, scale. A few pennies, multiplied by millions of small creators, adds up very quickly.

But if they had to setup Creator deals with each of those millions of creators with 1-2 videos, then the economics would simply not work out. It's the same reason they have piss poor customer support on their free products. Those products only work because they have billions of users, but providing customer support to that many people doesn't work financially.

Disable the dynamic wall paper and you won't get branded/sponsored ones.

I pay for YouTube Premium - I have a more than average negative response to ads.

For me if I'm paying for something I don't want ads. If you charge me and then also double dip with ads I'll try to find something else that doesn't.

Roku's differentiating feature has always been simplicity and universal search. Does Apple TV offer universal search across content providers? I'm asking, I don't know, but it's the one feature I can't give up.

I really enjoy using JustWatch for this. Their service allows you to search across all the streaming services, and browsing through their suggestions is fun. I also like using it to keep track of what I’ve watched and what I’d like to watch in the future. Their mobile app is pretty solid too.

Yep - you can search across all installed apps.

Content providers can choose what content to expose to the universal search. Most do, notably Netflix does not, so you can't find Netflix content using Siri.

That is one reason I canceled Netflix, and will not re subscribe until they opt in. Here’s the list of content providers that do integrate:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208083

Android tv does. Which you can get on an Nvidia shield or a cheaper off brand device on Amazon. Just be sure to get one that is certified for Netflix. (I think it's some kind of DRM that has to be on the device for the Netflix app to work).

I can't say this for everyone, but a tech consumer has to know that just over $100 does not cover the cost of the hardware. It's got to come from somewhere else. I'm usually not much of an Apple fan, but I just switched to the Apple TV and am really liking it. It certainly seems like charging 2x the price for the hardware removes a lot of the incentive to do all the scammy stuff Ruku is involved in; though I guess I can't know for sure, or know the future.

> a tech consumer has to know that just over $100 does not cover the cost of the hardware.

Nonsense. A raspberry pi costs far less and is, arguably, just as capable.

If it was just as capable, then people would buy Raspberry Pi's.

The problem isn't hardware capability, it's the ecosystem on top of it. Pi doesn't have a robust tv platform and app market system that is built around a remote control. Sure, you can run plex on it but even plex has long abandoned its streaming app platform and decided to roll its own TV service instead... Part of me wishes that Plex would have stuck with it but i guess they realized the Streaming TV problem isn't a software or hardware problem to begin with...

> The problem isn't hardware capability, it's the ecosystem on top of it.

The parent comment stated that the $100 doesn't cover the cost of the hardware. I disagree.

I do think it is perhaps a more reasonable statement to say $100 doesn't cover the cost of the hardware and the software platform on top of it.

I don't think it's right to shove ads down customer's throat on a product that they've paid money for. Whether that's money to buy the hardware and the software platform or whether that's money paid to the subscriptions; in both cases advertisements are the wrong solution to revenue. If software costs money then make that cost up front. Sell the software. Sell updates to the software. Sell a subscription for the software. But don't put ads on it!

I think the comment you're referring to is incorrect in that regard - of course $100 pays (or at least paid pre-chip-shortage) for the bulk-purchased chips and boards in the products, but people buy it because of the streaming services on the box, not because it has a Cortex-A55 in it (although that plays into choosing it over the 1080p model).

I have to chuckle because Google's entire existance has been based on advertising revenue so if you don't like ad supported "Fremium" or "discounted" services, this really is a moot discussion.

It's actually getting quite difficult to buy Raspberry Pi's at the moment, they are out of stock in most places. So people are buying them, but I know that's not what you meant in the context of this conversation.

A raspberry pi will do 4k, HDR AV1 and h265, and includes a remote, case, storage, power supply and HDMI cable?

A raspberry pi 4 will, and the accessories are relatively cheap: https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/build-the-ultimate-4k-home-...

Will it? I didn't know that rpi had any HW support for AV1.

Last I checked, there wasn't any player capable of doing HDR10 HEVC either, but maybe that has changed.

I like the rpi but I don't think its as capable as people are making it out to be.

And it doesn't have any hardware backed DRM, so service compatibility is low and those that do are generally in limited resolutions.

Anyway AV1 for streaming isn't a thing for now because Qualcomm refuses it.

I'm still seeing $65 for the Pi, then adding up everything else you need takes you over $100 easily.

These accessories are sold in quantities of one, to consumers, and made in relatively smaller batches. All of that gets a lot cheaper if you can injection mold a plastic housing and buy things in hundreds of thousands or millions.

Apple used to sell Apple TV's for $99. It's absolutely possible to make money selling a basic 4K box with a remote for $100 or even $50 these days. You can buy random Chinese emulation consoles and streaming devices for that much where they can only be making money off the hardware.

> It certainly seems like charging 2x the price for the hardware removes a lot of the incentive to do all the scammy stuff Ruku is involved in; though I guess I can't know for sure, or know the future.

Software services (i.e. updating iOS/Roku's OS) require on-going maintenance. Apple makes this by charging developers who in turn typically charge the consumers. Roku doesn't do this and hence why it can be hostile to the consumer. It's model is generally to use an ad model instead.

Now people know why there is a (arguably high) tax on subscriptions derived from iOS.

> charging developers who in turn typically charge the consumers.

It’s like Visa, restaurants will charge all customers including cash paying ones more too. So the Visa card holder, isn’t incentivized not to use it.

Roku was profitable while selling 50$ devices with no ads.

100 dollars certainly covers the cost of the hardware. These streaming devices use commodity chips and run Linux. This isn’t a crazy R&D project. The only real value-add from Roku is the software.

Yeah, embedded hardware is really cheap at scale, even with 4K video decoding.

I also bought an ATV recently and I'm very happy with it.

I still use an Nvidia Shield for Plex though. The ATV is great for streaming platforms, but lacks HDMI audio passthrough which is essential for watching hi quality BluRay rips on a home theater.

I do not know if this is what you mean, but the new Apple TV 4K has HDMI ARC/eARC:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207117

It's not that.

ARC/eARC is about the TV sending audio from HDMI devices to another HDMI port where your receiver/soundbar is connected.

HDMI audio passthrough is a feature that allows apps to send any raw encoded audio signal "as is" via the HDMI port (eg: Dolby, DTS, etc) to your receiver that will do the decoding.

The ATV does not support DTS or TrueHD, hence to output audio with those codecs, it needs to be decoded and converted on the fly to a supported format like PCM. Unfortunately this produces all sort of issues (sync, volume, etc).

I'm a long time Roku fan but also feel they're in the wrong here. Mostly I'm angry because I feel captive; I bought my TCL TV explicitly because it had the Roku OS. It's great! Right until it can't show the one content site I most want to see because of some stupid business argument. I feel like a sucker for paying for Roku.

I'm kind of done with Roku. When they were holding customers hostage to squeeze more money out of HBOMax I did a bit of reading about Roku and realized how parasitic they are.

None of the commercial streaming device options are great, but I think my next one will be an Apple TV.

> I'm angry because I feel captive; I bought my TCL TV explicitly because it had the Roku OS.

You bought a TV and expected it to not have its features changed. That sounds like a very reasonable expectation.

The TV has roku built in, but, it's still a TV with HDMI and USB ports so you can use it with any non ROKU device you want. You're not worse off...

I didn't know they charged money from app creators to be hosted. I thought they just made their money on hardware!

All roku had to do was build some quality hardware and a decent streaming UI. The only thing that would take money to maintain from a server perspective should be the update servers and software servers.

I saw them as one of the few dedicated streaming devices (next to Shield) for being "provider neutral" - that is, not apple and not Google.

OK. So they are supposed to make money selling one of the most unprofitable commodities on earth...electronic hardware? The only company pulling that off is Apple...and probably just on the iPhone.

I paid $400 for a huge TCL TV. It probably cost $100 just to move it around the globe. There is no money for development or the platform/service in that price.

There's no way that a container full of TVs costs $100 per TV to ship. A bit of quick ddg-ing and it looks like a 40 foot container should be less than $4000 port to port.

With the supply chain problems, prices have gone up - sometimes quite a bit. I saw this article:

>...Container shipping rates from China to the United States have scaled fresh highs above $20,000 per 40-foot box as rising retailer orders ahead of the peak U.S. shopping season add strain to global supply chains.

https://www.reuters.com/business/china-us-container-shipping...

BOM -> Factory -> Warehouse -> Worldwide distribution -> Port of authority -> Warehouse -> Retailer/Etailer -> Customer

We're spoiled..

I suppose the question is, what incentive do Apple or Google or Amazon have to put their content on a competitor's hardware? Moreover, pay to get it on Roku?

People are going to buy the hardware that has the content they want. I feel like the big three are squeezing Roku out.

Should legislation be written to require content and hardware platforms be separate? That Apple TV should have to be available for Shield and Roku, and that Youtube TV be allowed on Apple and Roku?

> Should legislation be written to require content and hardware platforms be separate?

There are literally thousands of platforms and devices, all with little bespoke niggles. Who's going to pay for that?

4 way dipping.

Roku also takes a cut for every transaction that goes via its platform. If I end up subscribing to HBO via roku, Roku takes a cut too.

On a related note, is it just me that's flummoxed by the lack of Ad disclosures for the Roku ads? I can't seem to find it - and having worked ij tech ads , I find this troubling and concerning.

> then they display massive ads covering 50% of the screen

Stop this. I have multiple Rokus. The % of time I spend on their menu looking at the ads is like 0.0001% of my total time using Roku. In fact, I didn't even notice any ads for months until someone on Reddit complained about it.

I think the triple dipping is the main issue. If they want a cut from content providers they need to provide something more then just we will have your app.

I am a bit sympathetic to them because that's what the market asks for.

I am looking at the prices of rokus, and my guess is they are losing money on the hardware.

And yes, we should have a completely free (as in speech) device. But if you actually offered it and priced it accordingly, most people would not buy it.

It's dumb but it's what we consumers have voiced with our money.

amazon offers an ad free version of the kindle for $30 more. I'd love the same from Roku.

But then... I bought the ad version, not for price but because it had the pretty colors and I don't like using cases on kindles anymore.

NextDNS blocks Roku's ads and tracking for me. I just get a blank square on the home page.

I'm reminded of the axiom: if you don't pay for the product, then you are the product.

Well, if you DO pay for the product, you are STILL the product.

The article says they don't make money from YouTube's Ads. Is that not true?