Fox to buy Roku

Being a platform, Roku benefits from advertising 3 ways - by running its own ads in some apps and on home screen; by exercising carriage rights on 3p apps that show ads (getting a cut as a platform); and by building and selling audiences for targeting.

For all I know, Fox has zero interest in platforms or technology. But they are fairly sophisticated when it comes to adtech and this is purely an adtech play.

This isn’t a content company that caters to viewers across the political spectrum or purely focuses on entertainment first, this is a company that almost exclusively runs right-leaning political media outlets.

Your Roku already has advertisements and other content nudges on the Home Screen, and now those are going to be very one-sided and potentially politically motivated.

As I recall, it was originally a Netflix product that was spun out due to its potential to cause a conflict of interest in their main business. They didn't want devices like Chromecast and AppleTV to see Netflix as a competitor, and be reluctant to bundle the Netflix streaming app on their devices.

At best, you should use services on a temporary basis and never allow yourself to get entrenched. Once you're locked in, you are part of the product to be sold to advertisers. The "install base" that is used as leverage for these sorts of shenanigans.

The hardware on the top tier devices doesn't seem to keep up. Interacting with it is slower and more laggy than it originally was.

They've tried to keep them unobtrusive, which I appreciate, but the mere existence of ads is disappointing. I almost give the Roku City ads a pass, because frankly that's clever, and mirrors the real world enough that it seems logical to me -- but ads in menus is grating.

CEC has been super flaky with the latest revisions as well, so for the past couple of weeks I've been relegated to using either the Roku remote or my phone instead of my TV's remote.

I'm a big fan of waiting to see before prejudging, but I can't imagine anything gets better post-acquisition, and I was already on my way out the door. I guess I'm buying an Apple TV now? Are there any other recommendations? I haven't kept up with the space at all, so if anyone has suggestions I am super happy to receive them.

My email search:

"Welcome to the "Roku-tech" mailing list" ... "Tue, Dec 2, 2003, 10:48 AM"

Not sure how I ended up on the mailing list a month before their product was released. There must've been buzz about it for a few months before release.

[1] https://photos.app.goo.gl/bMGBqm4mTmfUNJG39

Amazing they got $22B and tivo must be really kicking itself.

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

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?

We have antitrust laws in the US but they do us absolutely no good when the government refuses to even consider enforcing them, which seems to be the case in the past few decades.

Had cable TV constantly contacting me, since I had them for internet, until one day. Asked them, "Does this include Fox News" ... "Yes" ... "I'll will end my life before ever supporting Fox News. Contact me again when I can get À la carte and I don't have to fund the trash at Fox News." They never contacted me again.

Only streaming service I ever paid for was SiriusXM. Canceled it when I found that Fox News was part of the package.

There is already so much content to consume in a day that I don't have to sit in front of a TV for an hour or two. HTPC from my ripped DVDs and Blu-rays goes a long way if I too.

I'm not surprised they're going this route, and would not be surprised if News becomes a drastically smaller piece of Fox over the coming years.

Now there is a good reason.

I had been a pretty big Roku fan before that point as I had worked with them back in ~2017 and knew how locked down and sewn up they kept customer data, and only shared it in a very anonymized way. Obviously the situation has degraded in the recent years, and caused me to brick the functionality of a very expensive device.

Seems like it’s impossible to have a smart tv now that actually respects privacy, so back to dumb tvs and connections to pcs?

At this point it does seem easier to not have to look up if something is NewsCorp Fox or the parts of Fox that Disney bought because Disney no longer calls them Fox.

Were they held at gun point by Google? Is there a contractual obligation to not ship their own ads-free launcher instead of randomly switching back to Google's? Are they not the one packaging and distributing the software?

That's odd since they've been around for 23 years. I would understand that stance 20 years ago.

Is that even possible? IIRC Wyze cameras are whatever cheap Chinese OEM model thy find and can brand the firmware for. Seems as likely that Roku went to same OEM source.

You have to buy a smart TV and disable the internet + external device like Apple TV or Nvidia Shield.

You can find them in your local Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist region.

If you want more control buy a pc monitor and some speakers or commercial display.

What do you mean by this? The back button is involved in system UI and apps should be limited in their ability to steal it, but fast forward is an action that makes no sense outside the context of an app

It has never connected to the internet, and it never will. My long term concern is that google will eventually put cell modems in their tvs, and then using my next tv as a dumb tv will no longer be an option. For now though, this is your best bet.

It sucks because its android, but at least its degoogled.

Edit: for a TV, I love my 30 year old Panasonic. Paid $20 for it at the Mormon goodwill. Only 720p, but has the best speakers of any TV I've owned.

Google doesn't do scummy screen spying ("ACR", Automatic Content Recognition).

1. Remove the few pre-installed apps except the HDMI inputs you want.

2. Then disconnect wifi.

As long as the device you turn on does HDMI-CEC (which almost everything other than a PC does) it will automatically switch to the input that your device is connected to. If it doesn't, you just have to click on the input you want to switch to.

AppleTV with Infuse (note that Infuse is neither free as in "beer" nor "speech") is what I use now for Jellyfin and video content. I haven't found a good client for playing music with Jellyfin on AppleTV. Moonfin (libre, available for 10 platforms) is getting there, but still too buggy to daily-drive.

In ~2015 got an Xbox one, as a media center it was an awesome experience:

Kinect voice control to play/pause and other things way before Google home/Amazon echo ecosystem were mature.

Free OTA channels via TV tuner and well designed OneGuide (with ability to pause and rewind).

And of course all the Netflix and other apps, Plex server etc.

But strategically it seems Microsoft decided they wanted to look more like Playstation, focused on gaming (at that time paid Xbox live subscription vs free Playstation)

And as gaws points out, they seem to recently announce to double down on the gaming stuff.

So when they discontinued OneGuide. I picked Roku since they seem to be focused on the media experience primarily... but unsure how I feel about this acquisition news.

They certianly have enough to ice the carriers out. I wonder what an HBOMax subscription will cost in a year, I bet a fair bit more.

Personally I never bought into Roku because I didn't think they'd last very long.

I agree, there seem to be no good options for this. You can use Kodi or whatever, but I want something that supports playing my ... totally legally acquired content... and Netflix/Disney/iPlayer/etc. In a package that's silent and low power.

Doesn't seem to exist unfortunately. I guess the closest is Nvidia Shield. You can apparently still sideload APKs onto that... for now. I'll buy one when they release an update. I'm patient!

What I am going to do down the line personally is just buy a gaming laptop and use that. Can play games via Steam and watch stuff via Windows apps (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Crunchyroll).

Only problem of course is the laptop will be pricier, but if someone was going to buy a tv streaming thing AND a gaming system of some kind, probably cheaper.

It’s not really a viable option if you wanted to. I have two Frames and they both just keep deteriorating to the point they are pretty useless. I have added an appletv to one of them and it’s vastly improved the UX. Now the only thing I need to do with the Samsung software is the unreasonably slow task of switching inputs.

A dumb TV you can buy for cheap on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist with an Nvidia Shield or a similar streaming device running Android.

The original NVIDIA Shield is more than 10 years old at this point and still sells used for around $100 and people are still paying $200 retail for a new 2019 Pro. Interestingly, that price has basically stayed flat at $200 from 2020 to 2026. You can install Lineage or whatever if you don't care about the DRM. It's exactly what HN people want, and that's how much it costs.

This is full on Google Play Services certification and more. Ultimately to get the thing that can run/stream Netflix etc the amount of work just isn't viable for the price point people would pay for this.

Also the truth is no investor would touch this on hardware sale income alone, needs some subscription plan at least.

Roku was always a weird one, beloved by people who couldn't stand laggy built in TV interface but doesn't really offer much beyond what TVs come with anyway.

Sadly there are enough loyal fanatics that I can imagine they will continue to be sold indefinitely.

Does the market think this sale won't be approved by the current administration for some reason?

Who is it actually bad for? The consumers. The new religious-linked GOP no longer believes in fairness or holding business accountable for anything, it's "God's will" or something...