Features, settings & updates

[jkd]

If this happens to me, I will switch to Apple TV 4K. It's too bad since I've had Rokus starting with my Roku SD in 2009. Oh well. Change is the only constant in life.

[anti-ad]

Just adding to the chorus saying this "feature" is overly intrusive and infuriating.  I have not seen it on any of my Roku devices, and I'd better not.  I will very quickly replace ALL of my Roku devices if I do see it.  Heck, there is a non-zero chance that I immediately rip the Roku TV off the wall and throw it into the street if Roku serves me this autoplay startup ad.

[usury]

Regarding that finance-bro verbal spewage by Anthony Wood - Founder, Chairman, President & CEO...

Wow. How ducking clueless.

I hope someone checks that man's home for carbon monoxide. His brain isn't working right.

Translation...

"We took the thing that makes us good and desirable - our simple user interface - and made it sh*tty and annoying overnight. We did this because we told some advertisers we could annoy the living sh*t out of over 100million people. Those advertisers actually liked that idea and spent actual money to annoy our users, because they are just as horrible as we are."

"We're incredibly short-sighted here at Roku. We can't comprehend that users would rather smash the products they already paid for to bits and mail the pieces back to us than be bombarded with even more ads in their lives. We'll gain a bit of money now. Who cares if we lose users in the long run. That's a problem for next quarter and by then I've already gotten my bonus."

"Plus, I truly believe users appreciate having their theme/wallpaper changed to some ad-theme whenever we want to. We don't respect our users after all. Ya'll are just eyeballs to us."

Does anyone at Roku actually use a Roku?

[iknowaguy]

I will be removing all my Roku TVs if this ad on startup is permanent.

[RyPo]

I just saw this on my 4K+ stick this morning for Moana 2 and if they don't quit it I am also either getting a Chromecast with Google TV or a Apple TV.  I'm willing to pay more for a device that doesn't have this garbage auto playing.  I get that a large portion of their revenue is based on ads but this is a user hostile way to do it.

[ddbbbrtb45t4g4]

Add me to the chorus of users who will chuck all these devices if they keep yapping at me when I turn them on. I initiated a chat about what settings could turn this off permanently, but gave up after having to explain what I was talking about 3x.

I got my first Roku in 2012 and apparently, my last, a TV, in 2022. Guess these are going to the recycler with the bag of Alexas that wouldn't stop shilling when I asked them to set a simple timer.

[ROkooFlix]

Here's hoping Roku pivots away from the assertions by Mr. Wood quoted below from a recent call.  Adding RokuOS video ads to the Home Screen isn't likely to land favorably for Roku in the long run.  This is even worse than the patents Roku has secured for implementing pause ads on HDMI inputs.  

I'm a longtime Roku advocate who is now recommending Apple TV first before Roku's products based on the recent statements from Roku's Chief - Anthony Wood.  

It appear$ he'$ lo$t $ight of Roku'$ u$er experience, trading it in for $hort term gain$, those ad dollar$ will di$appear a$ u$er$ move away to other platform$.  It'$ $ure $hort$ighted he can't $ee how annoying the$e dollar $igns are for Roku'$ u$er$.  Thi$ green dollar paragraph $hould help demon$trate that.

Roku, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROKU)

Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference Call

March 05, 2025, 15:20 ET

Anthony Wood - Founder, Chairman, President & CEO

..."So what we're focused on is growing -- this year, is growing platform revenue by implementing our strategy. And our strategy really has three prongs. One is to really lean into our home screen. The fact that, like I said, households with 125 million people every day, turn on their TV, they see our home screen, they begin -- they use that experience to decide what they want to watch. They also engage with that experience, but there's actually a lot of opportunities to put ads in that experience itself. Like, for example, we just added a video ad to our home screen that is used by a whole bunch of different verticals, including car companies, which I like to -- it's a great way to have massive reach instantly for a video ad. So anyway, so leaning more into our home screen. There's a lot of things we can do there."...

..."And our home screen was not one of the things we historically focused on. We focused on keeping it simple. We focused on a great viewer experience. There's Iconic, our viewers love it. It's different than all our competitors, which all tend to look alike. But we didn't really focus on how can we use it to drive our business. And so that's what we're doing now."...

..."Other examples. We added -- we have the marquee ad unit which is on our home screen, which used to be just banner ads and it used to be just M&E ads. We added video to that. So there's video on the home screen now. And we -- and we're selling that increasingly to just consumer packaged goods to all the different verticals. So auto, for example, likes to buy that, that ad.

We also expanded the number of verticals that we do, even for things like we have themes on our home screen like wall paper, and the themes used to all would just be M&E, like Disney would have a new TV show. And so like when they launched Mandalorian, we had a Mandalorian takeover the home screen. So it's really cool. Everyone loves them. They look nice. They work well. But to sort of expand the number and types of verticals that have access to that, we started doing that. So for example, when we recently had a Carnival Cruises home screen takeover. It looked very pretty, but it was much more, it was not an endemic. It was cruises, not movies. So that's another example."...

[Paulwc]

I actually already had auto-play video turned off and it played anyway. 

[Screaminhotdog]

I saw this ridiculous ad too. I’ve been using Roku since the first generation and watched them pile on more ads over the years. Now a video ad that auto-plays?! If this isn’t removed, I’m switching to Apple TV—no home screen ads there. I paid for this hardware (for multiple TVs, no less). There shouldn’t be ads on the hardware/OS level.

[XSid]

This is unacceptable.  I'll happily roll my own solution and dispose of every roku product in the house if you think I'll wait to watch an ad simply for turning on the device.  You're not irreplaceable, simply convenient.  When that convenience runs out there is no point in keeping you around, supporting you, or recommending you to others.