Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands • Hacker News Board

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#351

Post by katbyte » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:05 AM UTC

chrismcb wrote: post #295

judge2020 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You tell me I can't run those on my Roku, well fuck you and your service. The thing is that Google shouldn't be forced to make their apps for the 30 different streaming box app stores if they don't want to. If there's no money to be made and they inherently lose money by tasking a team to keep the Roku app (or LG app or Samsung app, etc) up-to-date then they shouldn't have to. The Google Cast protocol is actually p…

They shouldn't be forced to... But their is money to be made. YouTube TV is a paid service. If I owned a Roku and YouTube TV want available for it I may cancel my subscription.

Or you may drop the roku and get a device that supports YouTube. People can go either way

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#352

Post by katbyte » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:09 AM UTC

salamandersauce wrote: post #304

dangus wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: the Apple TV is easily the best device of its kind on the market and I’m continually confused at why it doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to the most popular option. Every other steaming device I’ve ever tried is riddled with ads, dark patterns, and slow slow SLOW performance. I can understand the aversion to a $200 device just to watch some Internet TV but then I watch people making six figures pretend lik…

It's $200. Also the remote sucks, although maybe the new one is decent. I sold my Apple TV 4K and bought a Fire TV 4K and pocketed the difference. The Fire TV does have slightly more stupid ads on the home screen for shit like McDonald's but the Apple TV would gladly advertise me shit to buy on iTunes. Slightly more relevant ads maybe but still ads. Otherwise it does everything I did with the Apple TV plus works bett…

AppleTV has never shown me ads so I’m not sure where you saw them?

The new Apple TV just announced has a much better looking remote

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#353

Post by BikiniPrince » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:12 AM UTC

mikeryan wrote: post #283

etempleton wrote: post #142

HBO Max was delayed in appearing on Roku because of negotiation breakdowns. In the case HBO it was Roku that seemed to have the demands. They are looking at revenue anywhere they can, but if their position weakens look for Google, ATT, and others to simply forgo working with them. I think Roku is in a perilous position in general. They generated a lot of buzz on Wallstreet with their high user counts. They also purch…

TV manufacturers have mostly chosen to create and maintain their own ecosystems. This is actually a declining trend. LG and Samsung do but Moore's law has gotten it to a point where Android TV and, in fact Roku's platform are becoming much more prevalent on TVs, particularly some of the newer lower end devices. There's a large cost to maintaining your own HTML based platform (which is what most 3rd parties are) and t…

It’s too bad Android Tv application quality is atrocious. Applications like Hulu have huge swaths of the library that simply won’t play and it crashes. Couple this with a lack of application support and it is quite disappointing. The pled support was the last straw which led me to attach a roku to the television.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#354

Post by throwaway189262 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:14 AM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #88

smt88 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is both what many users would expect (if I have an app open, voice search works within that app) No, it's not. Most YouTube users have a different primary music app. Google is trying to artificially force a marriage of YouTube and YouTube Music because they have utterly failed to do it in the product experience and user base themselves. If I'm watching a random YouTube video and then want to switch to music, I…

As a Roku user who thinks Google takes a pretty hostile approach to anyone using their App on Roku, I disagree. If I'm in an App and search, I expect my search to be localized to that App. That being said, f*k Roku and their voice remote. They've been pushing that crap hard. Showing prompts on screen for upwards of 30 seconds to push the Mic button. I don't want my remote to have a microphone or be able to listen to…

The harder they push a feature, the more valuable the data they're stealing from you.

Google as an example. They push their "sensor fusion" location service EXTREMELY hard on Android. It will ask you to turn it on every time an app requests location and GPS hasn't locked. It's hard to not turn it on by accident. And once you hit yes, you never see another notification.

Well it turns out this "location service" provides some of the most valuable data Google ever receives. It's tied to their maps live traffic, "how busy is this place" features, location based advertising, wifi based mapping, accuracy of their IP->location maps.

It's creepy data core to their business and if too many people turned it off, it would seriously degrade their mass data collection.

Oh, and it's often given to law enforcement for dubiously legal "area" warrants where they simply say "give me all devices in this radius at this time". Where the radius can be hundreds of meters and the time can be hours.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#355

Post by ryeguy_24 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:16 AM UTC

throwaway189262 wrote: post #350

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #348

There are a lot of negative remarks about Roku in here and I’m baffled. I think their user interface and experience have been flawless for the past 5-7 years. I’ve had Roku 3, Roku 4K, and now a TCL Roku TV. The remote control is super snappy. The mainstream apps work really well (Netflix, Hulu, Prime, Plex, YouTube, PBS Kids). I can’t speak to the developer or business side of the company but for a steaming device/p…

I loved Roku but they lost me when their latest model would only show regular 1080p on a 2K HDR-10 screen. And yes it supports HDCP and all that crap. Roku just never tested downscaling apparently.

Never heard of 2K TV but sounds like a pretty narrow issue. I’m guessing it’s not not widespread across a high percentage of their user base? Nonetheless, it may not be the right choice for your specific needs but this comment shouldn’t be extrapolated to the average user.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#356

Post by dTal » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:23 AM UTC

throwaway189262 wrote: post #354

cptskippy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Roku user who thinks Google takes a pretty hostile approach to anyone using their App on Roku, I disagree. If I'm in an App and search, I expect my search to be localized to that App. That being said, f*k Roku and their voice remote. They've been pushing that crap hard. Showing prompts on screen for upwards of 30 seconds to push the Mic button. I don't want my remote to have a microphone or be able to listen to…

The harder they push a feature, the more valuable the data they're stealing from you. Google as an example. They push their "sensor fusion" location service EXTREMELY hard on Android. It will ask you to turn it on every time an app requests location and GPS hasn't locked. It's hard to not turn it on by accident. And once you hit yes, you never see another notification. Well it turns out this "location service" provid…

Have things changed? Last time I checked, on stock Android you couldn't use the GPS without uploading your location to Google, and the whole shebang was wrapped up under the name "location services".

More than anything else, this particular piece of strong-arming makes me completely distrust stock Android handsets. It's shocking to me how casually the boundary of location privacy was violated, and it doesn't inspire confidence in any of the other privacy boundaries.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#357

Post by throwaway189262 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:32 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #356

throwaway189262 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The harder they push a feature, the more valuable the data they're stealing from you. Google as an example. They push their "sensor fusion" location service EXTREMELY hard on Android. It will ask you to turn it on every time an app requests location and GPS hasn't locked. It's hard to not turn it on by accident. And once you hit yes, you never see another notification. Well it turns out this "location service" provid…

Have things changed? Last time I checked, on stock Android you couldn't use the GPS without uploading your location to Google, and the whole shebang was wrapped up under the name "location services". More than anything else, this particular piece of strong-arming makes me completely distrust stock Android handsets. It's shocking to me how casually the boundary of location privacy was violated, and it doesn't inspire…

You can turn off "location services" for local-only GPS fix but it's difficult and hounds you constantly.

After warranty ends I flash Lineage and run location spoofing.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#358

Post by throwaway189262 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:34 AM UTC

ryeguy_24 wrote: post #355

throwaway189262 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved Roku but they lost me when their latest model would only show regular 1080p on a 2K HDR-10 screen. And yes it supports HDCP and all that crap. Roku just never tested downscaling apparently.

Never heard of 2K TV but sounds like a pretty narrow issue. I’m guessing it’s not not widespread across a high percentage of their user base? Nonetheless, it may not be the right choice for your specific needs but this comment shouldn’t be extrapolated to the average user.

It's annoying when Windows, Linux, Android, and MacOS will let you play any resolution video you like even when it's above your native resolution.

I bet it affects many people with HDR monitors that aren't 4K, there's tons of those.

A good percentage of users that hook up Roku to a PC monitor will run into this.

Roku only supports HDR at 4K and normally I can just set youtube or whatever to "4K HDR" and OS downscales. Roku won't do it.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#359

Post by vagrantJin » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:35 AM UTC

mikeryan wrote: post #283

etempleton wrote: post #142

HBO Max was delayed in appearing on Roku because of negotiation breakdowns. In the case HBO it was Roku that seemed to have the demands. They are looking at revenue anywhere they can, but if their position weakens look for Google, ATT, and others to simply forgo working with them. I think Roku is in a perilous position in general. They generated a lot of buzz on Wallstreet with their high user counts. They also purch…

TV manufacturers have mostly chosen to create and maintain their own ecosystems. This is actually a declining trend. LG and Samsung do but Moore's law has gotten it to a point where Android TV and, in fact Roku's platform are becoming much more prevalent on TVs, particularly some of the newer lower end devices. There's a large cost to maintaining your own HTML based platform (which is what most 3rd parties are) and t…

> There's a large cost to maintaining your own HTML based platform (which is what most 3rd parties are) and the HTML platforms pretty radically under-perform these days.

I'm struggling to understand the claim made by this statement. Maybe I missed something? What does HTML have to do with serving video over the wire? Underperforming on which metrics? What's the time value of "these days"?

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#360

Post by MaxBarraclough » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:53 AM UTC

BikiniPrince wrote: post #353

mikeryan wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV manufacturers have mostly chosen to create and maintain their own ecosystems. This is actually a declining trend. LG and Samsung do but Moore's law has gotten it to a point where Android TV and, in fact Roku's platform are becoming much more prevalent on TVs, particularly some of the newer lower end devices. There's a large cost to maintaining your own HTML based platform (which is what most 3rd parties are) and t…

It’s too bad Android Tv application quality is atrocious. Applications like Hulu have huge swaths of the library that simply won’t play and it crashes. Couple this with a lack of application support and it is quite disappointing. The pled support was the last straw which led me to attach a roku to the television.

In my experience, poor/incomplete applications are something you have to keep an eye out for regardless of what platform you're dealing with.

I've seen audio stutter on a smart TV running the Netflix streaming app, and similar stutter on a network-enabled Blu-Ray player running the Amazon Video streaming app. I've seen 4K playback cause occasional stuttering in the Amazon Video app on a smart TV. Disney+ group playback is currently unsupported on PS4, but is supported on Xbox One. A few years ago, the PS3 Netflix app supported 1080p, whereas the Xbox 360 Netflix app only supported 720p. I've also seen the Xbox One YouTube app insist on playing a video at 720p or lower, despite that Roku will play it at 1080p (perhaps an issue with only a certain codec being available at that quality?). I've seen a paid video service with an iPhone app with completely broken Chromecast support (they fixed it a few weeks after I filed a bug report).