I suspect they are not going to restore the channel numbers despite our protests. I would like to be wrong, but typically these kinds of decisions are made from a "we know better than the great unwashed" viewpoint which doesn't lend itself to being reversed. Also, the other streaming channel sites do not have channel numbers which may well be why they decided to remove them in the first place.
What is different, though, on the other streaming sites like Pluto and Xumo are more clearly defined grids that are easier to navigate and see what's there. Roku's grid without channel numbers is really hard to deal with the way it's currently laid out and I expect they'll be making changes to get closer in look and feel to the others beyond removing channel numbers. Maybe I'm giving Roku too much credit.
Ultimately, the way to deal with this large set of channels is to create favorites and it's especially important to do that when you cannot go directly to the channel of your choice. Having an easy to navigate grid, a consistent grid, really helps in doing that.
You would think with all the computing power and talk of AI, the UI would not be limited to scrolling simply up or down whether it's the complete list of channels or a subset like favorites. With a little bit of voice recognition, I should be able to tell the system to go to Universal Action or Buzzr or Sky News, and with a little more voice recognition, I should be able to create my own names for my favorites and tell the system to go to what I call them. Nice to dream.
