this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13903698

Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.  

This way, when an owner of a Roku TV takes a short break from playing a game on their Xbox, or streaming something on an Apple TV device connected to the TV set, Roku would use that break to show ads. Roku engineers have even explored ways to figure out what the consumer is doing with their TV-connected device in order to display relevant advertising.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 7 months ago (6 children)

agony-shivering I dread the day when I can no longer buy a dumb TV or monitor. It's coming way too soon.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

You'll still be able to buy them but you'll have to get it from like Harbin Industrial Electronic Co., Ltd. who happens to be the only manufacturer of it in the entire world, and the minimum order size is 20.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago

even the commercial monitors are coming with bloat.

you basically have to get the really expensive ones that you can swap the main boards out for whatever.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

Was also struggling with this shit recently. I found out about the concept of "digital signage" which is like, the kind of screen that's used for a restaurant menu or an airport display. It's certainly a dumb display, so no smart tv crap. But the quality is all low, ain't exactly meant for good sharp picture. I ended up just getting a stupid 'smart tv' and have not hooked it up to the internet ever. It gets a display feed from my computer and that's it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

When my dumb tv dies I don't think I'll bother replacing it if I can't find another non-smart tv. I barely use it anyway so I don't think it'd be that big a problem. If monitors are all smart bullshit now then that's a different problem

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

I dread the day when TVs refuse to operate without a network connection. As it is now, even most smart TVs can be made dumb by never connecting them to WiFi etc., but I wonder how long that's going to last.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 7 months ago (2 children)

This is an interesting tidbit.

However, the fact that Roku even explored this points to a major underlying issue: These days, TV makers hardly make any money with their physical products. Roku’s FY 2023 earnings report shows that the company lost $44 million on the sale of smart TVs, streaming players and other devices in 2023. What brings in the bacon are ads and services; Roku generated a gross profit of nearly $1.6 billion with this business segment.

The only purpose of the TV is to show you ads indefinitely. Even when the sale, which is a loss leader, is recouped by ads you'd think, "Hmm. Maybe that's enough of that." But no, for these companies and their insatiable greed it will never be enough.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

What a wonderful system we live under, where the thing that people actually want somehow also isn't worth producing, and the mind-stabbing ads that everybody fucking hates have to be injected into every possible nook in order for production to stay alive. Truly the only possible functional economy.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Pro sports in the US are really doing everything they can to cram ads in. They’ve maxed out on commercial breaks so they’re going in another direction: playing surfaces and uniforms are getting more ads on them. If you want to watch the game, you have to see the ads. If you don’t watch sports much I’d encourage you to just watch a game for a few minutes (the NHL especially) and see how bad it’s gotten.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Prior to going to an NFL game because my mom won tickets while renting a vhs back in the day, I'd never watched a football game on TV.

My cousin offered to take me to the game so we went. I was blown away that after every couple minutes the players just kinda stood around on the field while TV commercials were run. I couldn't believe that was how the game went. I always assumed they filmed the whole thing and then broke it up for commercials when it aired on TV. I had no idea it was live and that's just how it was. Even now it blows my mind when I think back to that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I can appreciate NFL athletes wanting to just stand around and catch their breath, because of the intensity of the sport.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

we ran a hell of a lot more than that in middle school and high school sports without any breaks... these guys are getting millions upon millions of dollars to basically stand around for several minutes after a couple of plays

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

Oh I know... I remember the last time I watched a pro football game with my dad, I told him I couldn't believe there was more ad than game.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's so aggressive. When I was young I could watch the players on the court. Now they have the tracking technology (which... as someone into 3d graphics programming I have to admit, that kind of technology is cool) to project ads into the space dynamically. So the court just has more and more virtual real estate sold off for viewers at home. I'm sure it's all perfectly focus and user tested to ensure the exact right balance between unwatchable garbage and, "Ok, I can notice it and maybe I don't like it but I can barely ignore it."

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

They keep adding more and more shit to the main screen too. I can't even turn off all the bullshit fake channels that are really just ads now. I used to have a muscle-memory pattern of hitting 3 buttons to turn my tv off when we finish watching a show or movie, and now half the time it opens some goddamned ad and the other half of the time it turns the tv off.

They force me to look at the damned screen to see what i'm doing and then i see these little shitty channels of whatever garbage they're trying to hawk now.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I wanna explore the homes of these executives in minecraft after minecrafting them

[–] [email protected] 37 points 7 months ago (1 children)

China pls sabotage TSMC so we can stem the flow of chips into every goddamn thing I can buy. I don't want an ad burned onto my morning toast once dumb toasters aren't sold here anymore.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I think I've touched too much grass to understand this.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Lathe of heaven is from a movie where the guy with the hat can change reality with his thoughts.

Also was just envisioning ░M░Y░P░U░S░S░Y░I░N░B░I░O░ on a piece of toast.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't want an ad burned onto my morning toast once dumb toasters aren't sold here anymore.

Stay away from the Lathe of Heaven.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Fuck I better not have that power.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 7 months ago

Why do they keep trying to make the drink the can meme a thing? Plz no.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Rate of profit really declining

[–] [email protected] 31 points 7 months ago

It has a tendency to do that. marx-doomer

[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago (2 children)

thonk I wonder when it's going to become illegal to jailbreak (remove ads) from your TV, fridge, toaster, toothbrush, etc..

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago

In the US, it already would be under the DMCA.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

"An off switch?" "She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal."

[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Roku TVs could one day show ads as soon as you pause playing a game on a connected Xbox, or stop a stream on an Apple TV.

People are gonna be so pissed at the false positives on this, lmao. What an awful idea. I mean they'll hate the function generally but this is 100% not going to work as intended and be even worse.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I imagine as soon as someone has to see an ad in the middle of their Call of duty match or whatever, they'd be either returning that tv or at least never buying anything from roku again. The brand would burn itself down, making people not want their tvs, which in turn makes them lose money by having less people using them and seeing their ads

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago

Lmao I’m imagining a slur-cursing kid getting an ad in the middle of their rant and hurling a controller at the tv in a fit of anger

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

which means they'll increase the amount of ads they show to the rest of the suckers who continue to keep their roku/tv

end result being anyone who keeps using roku anything just sees ads 24/7

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

I imagine as soon as someone has to see an ad in the middle of their Call of duty match or whatever, they'd be either returning that tv or at least never buying anything from roku again.

They’ll either SWAT Roku executives or go on a mass shooting rampage at a local Arby’s

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago

that's so awesome i was so tired of things like games and movies getting in the way of my viewing experience of ads for shitter paper.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago

why hasn't the world moved to an open standard yet? seems absurd that we allow a bunch of bytes be controlled based on the cable you have

This way, when an owner of a Roku TV takes a short break from playing a game on their Xbox, or streaming something on an Apple TV device connected to the TV set, Roku would use that break to show ads. Roku engineers have even explored ways to figure out what the consumer is doing with their TV-connected device in order to display relevant advertising.

So they would be showing ads to no one? They'll just be sending data to a TV that's not on? And this would produce a profit?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

I already refuse to shop at Best Buy because their ads on so many websites are invasive.

No ad buyer who wants people to like their product will go for this.

So it will just be the worst garbage.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

cursed. very cursed.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

mine literally already does this. I turned on my TV to play FF7 Rebirth the other day. It's a Hisense (which is a Roku TV). Tell me why when I turned the TV on and it popped up on the PS5 HDMI connection (PS5 was still in rest mode so it was just the 'no connection found' screen) it pops up with a little ad telling me to watch FF7 Advent Children on Prime Video. Excuse me??

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Roku's value was that it was a low effort way to use streaming apps on a TV, they don't even have any network effect advantages. 90% of TVs already come with all the roku functionality built in. Absolute business suicide.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

First the basilisk and now this?!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

Thank fucking Christ my media server is over wifi. If I ever run into ads on my totally legally acquired array of horror movies, I'm going fucking nuclear.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

How to kill your brand with this one neat trick!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

On that topic, my trusty 55" dumb tv of over nine years died recently. Are there any decent dumb tv brands that aren't too expensive these days?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

what you want is a "commercial display"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

i will be trashing all my rokus if they go that route.. hopefully there is a decent alternative by now

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Host your own media server. Sail the high seas of piracy

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I have a jellyfin and a plex server, but nothing has ever been as simple as the roku where we can just hit the button to turn the tv on and fire up youtubetv or pick one of the media servers to watch a movie or show and then a menu item to turn the tv off again when we're done.. it's more just the device that interfaces with the servers than anything else and it's getting really cumbersome now. unfortunately we have one for each of the tvs.. 1 in the living room, 1 in the kitchen, and 1 in the bedroom... my partner is a big tv junkie.

is there something else that handles those three functions with a remote? that's really all that's needed to be honest

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