Almost downvoted instinctually as a reaction to the headline. Visceral reaction. I hate this beyond belief.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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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.
Roku is bad, I have one older Roku ""smart"" tv that I just block from accessing the internet entirely, and use a shield with a custom launcher instead.
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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?
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Shit. I got a Roku TV. That's one big fucking stick to toss.
Step 1. Factory reset.
Step 2. Do not allow it to connect to the Internet.
Step 3. Connect a Linux based computer to it and run everything through the computer.
Instructions unclear. TV now controlled by Nicole the fediverse chick.
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Im literally willing to ditch the device and cancel all streaming services because of this. When I turn on my TV I don’t want to be forced to consume ads when I haven’t been provided with anything in return.
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I was thinking about changing my Roku TV anyway. "Dumb" TVs are the future for me.
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.
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Roku had the best smart tv ui. I was seriously bummed when the ads started rolling in a few years ago.
I want an open source streaming client, but from what I hear DRM gets in the way of that.
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