Channels & viewing

[noelsautomotive]

Likewise, we are very disappointed. Much of our streaming consumption is through vid Angel. We will either consume less (and pay less through Roku) or start migrating away from the Roku platforms…which is a shame because I really like the platform. ROKU, PLEASE CHANGE YOUR MIND / APPROACH. #SupportVidAngelonRoku

[kj7ym]

As promised earlier I am giving an account of my journey away from ROKU. I think I already mentioned that after some research my entire family local and extended, that rely so much on VidAngel for our children and ourselves, selected the Fire Cube as our device of choice. So here is the first update of our experience with the Fire Cube in this journey. 

When we went to use VidAngel through our shiny new Fire Cubes, it was mostly a joy, but we found that initially we could not seem to get Paramount+ working. It turns out that since we had subscribed through the ROKU platform it did not give us permission on the Fire Cube at first. Fortunately all our other channels worked quite well, and we simply had to log into our ROKU account and cancel Paramount internaly. We then just let the subscription time out. For us that was 10 days. I then went back to Paramount+ loging in using my PC, and restarted my subscription on the PC, independant of the ROKU platform. Easy Peazy! I was fortunate that my Disney channel and others had either been created outside the ROKU system or had already been redone this way over the years, t since we had found a need to use them on our traveling devices during summer trips. Mostlyy using our laptops or tablets. This gave us a great advantage in this migration. And I am now wiser, and with what I have learned, we will always subscibe independantly of any plateform from now on, including the new Fire Cubes our family are now using.

I must say, that VidAngel is working perfectly on the cube by the way.

I do miss the familiar way of getting around in ROKU. But I suspect the new  methods will soon become as familiar as the roku system once we have been here a while.

As we come up with new joys or challenges we will return and report.

Good luck to all of you, seeking a choice in what we view, and expose our children to.

And good luck to ROKU, I really appreciate the good years we did have together.

Larry

[AngryAnchovy]

Fantastic overview... Thanks for this detailed report.

I just realized that this also means all of our auxiliary subscription channels will be an additional loss to Roku. I think we have 3-4 other channel subscriptions that will be getting pulled from Roku with our pending switch away from the Roku platform. I best get started reviewing them all now to avoid as much overlap as possible.

This actually bring a nice smirky smile to my face knowing that Roku will be losing these other revenue streams as I leave their platform behind! 😁😚

I guess Roku deserves this because they've been so absolutely horrible about responding to any of us VidAngel users...

T-minus 1 day!

[BNB]

I wish the "community experts" were more helpful to the conversation other than just accusing VidAngel of having questionable business approaches and providing misleading information to their customers.  @DBDukes comparison of VidAngel's approach and business practices to PornHub is ridiculous and much more slanderous than what VidAngel users have stated as conjecture as to Roku's motives in not approving the channel.

To my knowledge, VidAngel has only stated that that the unofficial channel has been canceled and they have been denied many times the request to make the channel official which is an accurate, simplification of the issue. In contacting VidAngel support, all they did is refer me to this forum in response to my inquiry on where I could go to complain to Roku.

Roku on the other hand has said little or nothing and their support team will not accept my inquiry.  This has opened them up to the increased scrutiny and potentially false or misleading information written in the forums by their angry, with cause, soon to be former customers.  If Roku wants to refute these claims and provide an explanation to the loyal customers who subscribed to VidAngel, it would be greatly welcomed by those customers.   

As VidAngel promotes Roku products and other services being viewed on Roku, we can only assume the motives to be nefarious toward filtering or VidAngel itself.  Most likely it is a monetary issue or pressure from a third party who does not want to see the channel approved.  Either way, their customers do not seem to be of big concern to Roku currently.       

[DBDukes]

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@BNB wrote:

... @DBDukes comparison of VidAngel's approach and business practices to PornHub is ridiculous and much more slanderous than what VidAngel users have stated as conjecture as to Roku's motives in not approving the channel....     

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You're accusing me of slander? You mean libel. Learn the difference. But I do have a good defense against a libel claim. That is: the truth.

The truth does not care what you think of it. It simply is.

PornHub and VidAngel are just alike in their business practices. Both are firing up their bases to attack Roku because they have been, for years, using a loophole in the non-certified app process to promote their legally questionable practices (although the multi-million dollar judgment against VidAngel answered that question; legal challenges against PornHub continue). Roku has closed that loophole and now both of those companies are crying foul.

The only thing foul is the business practices of those two companies. You don't like being compared to the PornHub user base? Then stop acting like them. Judging by your actions, there's not a lick of difference.

If you have a problem with the operation of your Roku devices, I'm here to help each and every one of you. And if you post something that's not so, I'll help educate you on that as well. But you might not like it because I will tell it like it is. You may not like the facts, but the facts don't care.

[AngryAnchovy]

Well, I successfully canceled over $100 of side channel subscriptions from my Roku account today...I even got Roku to refund me some money which made me feel even better knowing I'm pulling actual cash out of their accounts!

💪👍😁

I did this in preparation for tomorrow...

[DBDukes]

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@AngryAnchovy wrote:

... Roku (has) been so absolutely horrible about responding to any of us VidAngel users...

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That is very true. Roku won't respond, though, and you should not expect a response on this forum. Roku didn't address the dispute with Google when YouTube TV was pulled for around a year from the platform, and Google is a lot bigger than VidAngel Entertainment. No company would respond on a forum such as this.

This is a user forum, and the only time anyone from Roku will chime in is when someone needs help with their device and it can't be solved by help from other users. Roku won't respond to things such as this.

[Juan_Galto]

Vidangel was one of the few reasons I still use Roku devices.  Extremely disappointed that Roku appears to be actively censoring Vidangel and I'll never buy a Roku TV or device again.

[AngryAnchovy]

Oh my goodness!!!

Give it a rest already...

Mr. DBDukes please go bother someone else who actually cares... you're wasting your time on this thread... nobody here is really going to give you much credence or credibility.

We've all learned Roku simply doesn't care about our community nor do they care about this user forum...they just seem to have folks like yourself trying to respond on various threads to give the allusion of the user forum being monitored. In truth, our efforts to draw attention from Roku has simply been a huge waste of everyone's time (yes, including yourself).

...as much as we'd like to see Roku come to their senses and approve the VidAngel App, they don't even seem to be aware of the community of user they're about to lose. Needless to say, we will get over it... we will all move on...and you, Mr. DBDukes, will still be here doing whatever it is you've been doing...Roku obviously doesn't care or possibly they're just completely ignorant. Admittedly, it's hard for us who actually do love Roku to see them lose our entire community... it's saddening to see their user base slowly diminish and disappear.

The VidAngel app was in their store many many moons ago... it was at one time an approved channel app. I've asked them in numerous phone calls if they could look to see how many Roku devices currently have the VidAngel app side-load because I'm curious to know how many of us there were but that doesn't matter now because we're nearing the end of this story soon... we will all be gone soon enough...

Mr. DBDukes, you'll soon have this precious forum back to yourself again!

😀😀😀

In closing, we value the VidAngel service more than Roku!  Good bye Roku!

[atc98092]

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@Juan_Galto wrote:

Extremely disappointed that Roku appears to be actively censoring Vidangel...

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Roku isn't censoring anything. They have changed their developer rules and non-certified channels are no longer permitted. Beta test channels will have major restrictions and a limited number of permitted testers. There is a wide variety of content that is being removed, VidAngel only being one of many. From everything I've read, it does seem a shame that Roku won't certify their channel. But we have no clue as to the reason, and there will never be a response from Roku here about it. If Roku ever makes any public statement about it, they will do so in their blog, not here. I've also heard of them responding to customers on their Facebook page. But you'll never get a response here.