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Fox to buy Roku

wsj.com

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Re: Fox to buy Roku

#121

Post by maxerickson »

Noaidi wrote: post #50
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…

Yes, let the enshitification begin. I have never seen a mergre like this not lead to anything but a money grab. They will no doubt remove things like PlutoTV, which is free, and substitutte it with more subscription apps and more data collection

Fox owns Tubi, which has a similar model to PlutoTV.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#122

Post by sanex »

hvs wrote: post #119

I used Rokus for years (happily) but they slowly began to degrade the experience with ads on their home screen (that were often not appropriate for children). Due to an unrelated project that required me to purchase an AppleTV I was quickly amazed at how much better their product was. Fast and clean. Never going back.

I feel the same about disney when they started adding hulu content to the main app.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#124

Post by thinkingtoilet »

airstrike wrote: post #108
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.

that law does not exist, probably because not enough people feel that way

Your reasoning does not stand at all. There are plenty of things that the majority of people agree upon in this country but it does not get done for a variety of reasons. For example, it's not as important as other issues so they can't prioritize it for voting, gerrymandering, etc...

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#125

Post by thayne »

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…

Are there any alternatives that are independent of streaming services?

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#126

Post by evan_ »

dhosek wrote: post #116

I had to look to see whether this was NewsCorp Fox or Disney Fox. In the 00s I did some contract work at Fox Filmed Entertainment (the part of the company later bought by Disney) which was introduced during interviews as Fox Filmed Entertainment We Have Nothing To Do With Fox News.

It's the Murdoch one.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#127

Post by nemomarx »

thayne wrote: post #125
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…

Are there any alternatives that are independent of streaming services?

Google and Apple seem like the best competition and they do have streaming services, although Google's is just their bad YouTube tv thing and very ignorable. I'm not sure Amazon is even in the running now.

The Nvidia shield used to be a decent streaming box?

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#128

Post by nazgulsenpai »

I bought a 42" Hisense Roku TV for like $120 with no prior research from Walmart a few years ago when my old plasma finally passed through to the great beyond. The interface was so clean and pleasant to use and there aren't ads stuffed everywhere.

Went to a friend's house and he had a Roku Express player and his was littered with ads and the whole UI was Christmas themed.

Moral of the story is pihole is OP.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#129

Post by saratogacx »

pavon wrote: post #103
legitster wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the complaint about ads is mostly a knee-jerk reaction by certain online communities. The ads are not particularly obnoxious - they are always off to the side and don't interfere in navigation in any way. Furthermore, I'm on a Roku looking for content and the ads highlight content. It's not that different than seeing posters on the way to a movie theater.

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.

Re: Fox to buy Roku

#130

Post by holistio »

I remember when Google buying YouTube for $1.6b sounded crazy. And then when then-Facebook Meta bought WhatsApp for 10 times that.

$22b.

Are there any companies left that are not in the decabillion range?

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