A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices. Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November 2023, though it hasn’t yet been granted.
The technology described would detect whether content was paused in multiple ways—if the video being displayed is static, if there’s no audio being played, if a pause symbol is shown anywhere on screen, or if (on a TV with HDMI-CEC enabled) a pause signal has been received from some passthrough remote control. The system would analyze the paused image and use metadata “to identify one or more objects” in the video frame, transmit that identification information to a network, and receive and display a “relevant ad” over top of whatever the paused content is.
Even if people sue, doesn’t mean they have any legal grounds to win. What law is Roku breaking? You can’t sue your TV manufacturer for not being 4k when you pay for 4k content. Your content display technology has the right to display content how they see fit.
I see this as a job for the free market. As consumers we need to show Roku how we feel about that.
If I purchase a TV, that I now own, and after I own it the company “updates” my TV that I now have to watch ads in order to use the TV I purchased without that condition?
At minimum it’s a breach of contract
Their recent ToS update: “We bricked your TV until you ‘consent’ to waiving your right to sue us if we do something illegal. Also, we won’t tell you what you’re consenting to up front, instead we’ll make you spend hours reading through pages and pages of legal garbage to find where we buried this statement.”
They know that nobody would agree to this if they put it in big bold letters right above the “agree” button, so they bury it behind hours of tedious reading so that people cave in and just “consent.”
If you roofy someone’s drink and pester them until they “consent” to sex, you would get thrown and jail and probably shanked in the liver. If Roku bricks the TV that you purchased and won’t let it work again until you consent to something that you’re nearly guaranteed to miss or not understand by design, their profits go up because people can’t sue them.
This capitalism hellhole can’t burn down fast enough.
The free free market requiring a cool hat and tropical bird.
Hey, as long as there is a way for ordinary people to attend shareholders meetings in person and have direct physical access to the humans who made these decisions, I’m sure everything will work out in the end.
Is that how you think the free market is supposed to work? People don’t get to decide how companies operate. They have every right to create a shitty product. As long as there’s room for competition to punish them for that bad decision.
The free market has failed dude. THIS IS THE RESULT of it!
Capitalism and our current implementation has many failings. A company making a really shitty anti-consumer decision when there are plenty of alternative competitors and options is not one of them.
Capitalism rewards the most ruthless pursuits of money. Without regulations monopolies, shit products, and the cheapest wages possible are the end results of it as those are the most efficient ways to get as much profit as possible. In the end, any company that doesnt participate in such tactics gets out competed
Capitalism, has a bunch of problems. Those are some of them. Frankly I think it’s due to collapse and I hope we’ll be better for it. But Roku? Monopoly? They’re a mediocre company making a possibility short sighted decision. This is capitalism working as intended. Don’t buy it if you don’t like it.
If you don’t like capitalism call out real problems, because this just sounds like you’ll take anything that looks bad and blame it on capitalism. Which weakens the overall argument against it, IMO.
Bud, you just agreed with me what the real problems are, yeah monopoly doesnt apply to Roku, but shit product DOES with this change. But all THREE are huge problems for “regulation FREE MARKETS” which is what I listed them in response to
Edit: Formatting
Ah, I think I misunderstood. My mistake. I would make the point that I think many consumers would actually prefer the cheap ad riddled version of many services. Like, many streaming services people complain about having ads, have an ad free tier they’re unwilling to pay for. But I assume you’d make the argument that’s from the poverty created by the other problems within capitalism. Which is a valid criticism.
Fuck man, lemmy is such a refreshing change of pace compared to reddit for these kinds of conversations. And yeah, its partially from poverty style decision making, and some of it is theres usually a larger percentage of a customer base that doesnt care about the finer details of what goes into what they are buying as long as its cheaper than there is for those that want higher ethics/quality. Either way though, without regulation (with it too, but regulation lets there be an acceptable floor intalled), the cheapest to buy product will eventually win out over the competition, and the cheapest way to get the cheapest product will win on that front. At that point, since the goal is to get as much money as possible, the product will start rising in price now that the competition is gone, and steps will be taken to prevent new competition from forming
Oh I know right? I have shared this sentiment with other… lemmings? It feels like people think more about actually fostering meaningful conversations. Anyway, thanks for your thought provoking comments!
Lol, wake up man, the free market hasn’t been free for years now.
Yes the free market always wins!