@glend123 wrote: The only way they'll try to improve their products is if people stop buying them.
I've got a feeling the tv makers could ditch Roku. Now that Android is on TV, and more makers (including Roku's first partner, TCL) are producing Android TVs.
Not only that competition, but something looks very "off" about Roku's relationship with tv makers. Roku pushes the software updates out. Nobody knows who's testing updates before being pushed (or even if they're being tested. Everything looks like they aren't tested. Updates break tvs.). Then Roku blames the tv maker, saying they're responsible for everything. The collusion tactics are obvious. Roku doesn't want any clear lines of responsibility.
I wouldn't be surprised if the tv makers want out of that toxic arrangement. Especially when they can contrast it to Android's mature & professional structure (between software and hardware). It looks like a no-brainer to me. Android allows turning off updates, and going back to an older version (I believe). TV makers are in control of pushing out updates. Not the scam of fielding all the complaints and blamed for something they didn't do.
For me, the real key is how Roku acts like nothing's wrong. Like, if they can put on that act forever, nothing ever will be wrong. I think they're miscalculating that tremendously. The pandemic was a seeming windfall bring all these new customers. But, that's just that many more people to see the dark underbelly. It's not like any company is terrific. But, who does this? This is like Alan Arkin Catch-22 stuff. You wouldn't believe it unless you saw it yourself. There's that many more people potentially seeing it themselves. That many more people making it apparent to the tv makers ("Roku said it's your fault.").
This latest "disaster" with the guide was interesting. People were acting like they were severely impacted (when you view one of twenty different guides online. I assume they could still watch channels. They just weren't getting information. Nothing was blocking their view of the channels the way it does if you don't have internet at all). If it was just loss of easily-replaced information, you'd think they'd be concerned with how UNTESTED, NON-OPTIONAL software updates can completely break their TV. And, how Roku acts like nothing's happening. "It's the tv maker who did it to you."
IMO, if people get as excited as we saw yesterday about easily-replaced information & obvious system-wide outage (i.e, likely to be fixed since it affects everyone), you'd think they'd be disconnecting their tvs from the internet knowing they're just one untested software update away from being the random loser who is ignored and left behind (entirely, with no help or partial functionality).
Someone remarked "why so angry?" I agree. Look at the real stuff to be angry about. Imagine how you'd feel if a NON-OPTIONAL, IRREVERSIBLE, UNTESTED software update broke your tv, and the abuser's only help is to blame the tv maker. If they're angry about a 2-day glitch, imagine how they'd feel with smiling Enzyte Bob giving them the canned send-off.
TCL, Onn, et. al., must be seeing this stuff too. It seems to me they'd ditch Roku at the first opportunity.
"People are often amazed at how much we’ve done with the number of engineers we’ve got." (Roku CEO Anthony Wood, Austin Statesman, Oct 4, 2019). "Amazed" is one way of putting it.
