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Fox to buy Roku

wsj.com

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Re: Fox to buy Roku

#201

Post by prepend »

iririririr wrote: post #181
literatepeople wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Apple TV seems to be the closest ive found to not being riddled with ads though. the home screen doesn't have ads at all, the closest which exists is the "top shelf" feature when you hover over the Apple TV app, and that can be turned off in settings. But it has some other issues

how can you live with that awful remote? not even a mute button. and it makes me earn for the old directtv remote! that's how bad it is. Everything is so unresponsive and odd.

I really like the remote. It has mute and volume and like swiping on the top rather than clicking.

I like that it’s aluminum, doesn’t take batteries, and is bluetooth (or at least doesn’t require line of site). It’s the longest lasting of any remote in my house.

You’re probably thinking of earlier versions that were different.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#202

Post by nrclark »

Induane wrote: post #79
Octoth0rpe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was dreading my most recent tv purchase (last fall) for exactly this reason, and ended up with TCL google tv. One can apparently setup a google tv as a dumb tv and never sign it into the internet. It acts exactly how I'd want a dumb tv to work now, simply auto uses the most recent hdmi device, or the active one if the most recent one isn't active. It has never connected to the internet, and it never will. My long t…

You'll be able to stop the signal if they add cellular data. Still annoying though.

I don't see this happening any time in the near future. The extra hardware cost is nontrivial, and there's a software support burden. Cellular bandwidth also isn't free, and probably wouldn't be covered by the value of any ads/telemetry that it carried.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#203

Post by prepend »

tadfisher wrote: post #185
righthand wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go to Walmart and buy a streaming box that is a Raspberry pi-sized board with custom Android installed and the package claims it has 700+ channels. But it just is an overlay for pirate streaming sites.

It is also a gateway for "residential proxy networks", AKA botnets for rent.

Which is a decent trade off for unlimited content.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#204

Post by kylehotchkiss »

nrmitchi wrote: post #96

I may be lambasted for saying this, but I do not believe that Fox (or any large media company, really) should be permitted to purchase direct access to the TV hardware of roughly 30-50% of american households.

The Fox News audience has been told to passionately disagree with you.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#205

Post by hydrogen7800 »

saratogacx wrote: post #129
pavon wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my Roku the ads aren't just off to the side. When I go to the home screen there are now "recommended" shows above and below my channels, and they are initially selected, so I have to scroll down past them to get to my actual channels.

Every one of those sections can be trivially turned off in the settings. Mine just have the list of apps I installed on my device.

Yes, which you have to do repeatedly after every software update when they change your settings.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#206

Post by baggachipz »

tombert wrote: post #195
willismichael wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm impressed that you were able to cancel SiriusXM. I thought that it was set up to cling to people for life, and possibly continue billing their estate after death.

I think they actually got in trouble with a lawsuit over that? FWIW I canceled my SiriusXM like a year ago and it wasn't too hard. Just a web form.

All they do now is hound you incessantly until the end of time with a rock-bottom price for 6 months.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#207

Post by baggachipz »

tombert wrote: post #194
yndoendo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

When I got my house, I needed to set up internet, and Verizon FIOS was what I went for. I called them to get it set up, and when I suggested the internet dude on the line kept trying to upsell me TV packages. I was polite at first but eventually I said something like "listen, I don't want your 'Movie Lovers' package. I don't want your 'Sports Fan' package. I don't want your 'Family Entertainment' package. I don't wan…

I'm sure they're forced to do that and graded on how many upgrades they sell. Their bosses will even listen on calls and if they don't make all those pitches, they'll get written up or fired. Source: seen it first-person.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#208

Post by pseudosavant »

rhubarbtree wrote: post #191
freeAgent wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, I think the Apple TV is the best streaming box out there. Of course, Apple is both the manufacturer and a streamer in their own right. And they definitely privilege their own store and streaming over other services. However, everything else already sucks so much with UIs chock full of ads that Apple wins anyway. It’s awful.

Can confirm Apple is best but Roku is amazingly good number 2. In some ways its UX beats Apple.

Especially because you can get TVs with Roku built-in. I would guess most Roku users aren't using a box these days.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#209

Post by mrguyorama »

andrewla wrote: post #74
dylan604 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware I mean, of course they did. If you were running a company and had to choose between a one-time relatively small fee vs a life time of near constant ad driven income per user, which would you choose?

Obviously preferences vary, but I would prefer to accumulate the goodwill rather than the ad fees. I'm not a saint and I would probably try to have some sort of "buy the roku streamer v7, now with ". In the end the tradeoff is pretty rough; judging by alternatives, keeping the cost of the stick low requires that they do the ad thing. I say that I would pay more for an ad-free version but I never went out there and bo…

The problem with the companies run by people who want to accumulate goodwill is that they will always be outcompeted by companies run by shithead assholes making number go up, because empirical evidence is that not enough consumers give a shit about goodwill to make it a real competitive advantage.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#210

Post by tencentshill »

freeAgent wrote: post #186
andrewla wrote: post #4

As a long-time[1] customer of Roku I am tentatively extremely pessimistic. I have always been unhappy with Roku's decision to get involved in streaming content at all, because it could potentially cut into their service-agnostic architecture. Bad enough in my mind that they had in-platform ads instead of just charging for hardware, but way worse when they are actively competing with streaming services. And now it loo…

Ironically, I think the Apple TV is the best streaming box out there. Of course, Apple is both the manufacturer and a streamer in their own right. And they definitely privilege their own store and streaming over other services. However, everything else already sucks so much with UIs chock full of ads that Apple wins anyway. It’s awful.

Some apps on the apple tv still have ads on the pause screen (covering the content I may have wanted to pause to see, a terrible UX choice). It can't be entirely avoided.
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