Roku's Ultimatum: Surrender Jury Trial Rights or Lose Access to Your TVs
community.roku.com
community.roku.com
Two interesting notes:
* In order to opt-out of the binding arbitration, you have to identify yourself and your devices, and possibly provide a proof of purchase, to Roku via snail mail. This is information that they would not necessarily have for a device like a 3rd party TV that just happens to use the Roku software.
* There is a clause in the agreement[0] that if more than 25 arbitration requests are received within a period of time, Roku is allowed to group the requests to avoid having to pay the abritration fees for each[1].
K. Mass Arbitrations. If 25 or more Claimant Notices are received by a party within 180 days of the first Claimant Notice that the party received, and all such Claimant Notices raise similar Claims and have the same or coordinated counsel, then these Claims will be considered “Mass Arbitrations.” You or Roku may advise the other if you or Roku believe that the Claims at issue are Mass Arbitrations, and disputes over whether a Claim meets the definition of “Mass Arbitrations” will be decided by the arbitration provider as an administrative matter. To the extent either party is asserting the same Claim as other persons and are represented by common or coordinated counsel, that party waives any objection that the joinder of all such persons is impracticable.
[0] https://docs.roku.com/published/disputeresolution/en/us
[1] https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/news-insights/another-court-r...
The Samsung/Google TV I bought last year is absolute garbage. Always pushing ad-supported channels so Google can make a commission. Sluggish response out of the box that has only gotten worse. Roughly daily it will freeze up and need to be unplugged. I've had to just connect it to my computer and basically use it as a monitor to get any use out of it. Certainly soured me on any more Google products.
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I have very old sets of TVs that work but have terrible image quality (720p), and more importantly, are now too small for our vision. Because I wait too much, I can't get any decent display in a size/quality combination
It's at least somewhat understandable when Joe Sixpack goes to Targmart and tries to buy a TV, but comes home with a manufacturer backdoored surveillance device and only discovers the trap six months later. But why is this seemingly a consumer concern for a technical community? Everyone here should know better.
I've had it in my head that I wouldn't mind a larger display some time, and from what I've seen I certainly can't rule out having to suffer some crapware UI with a glacial turn on delay. The important bit is that I would never connect such a device to the Internet where continuous updates invite manufacturer malfeasance.
In fact this is exactly what I've done with my receiver (Marantz NR1605). It was sold with various streaming capability gimmicks that didn't and don't matter to me. It continues to perform the same function that I bought it for nearly a decade ago.
But the ecosystem seems to be years old shields that struggle with 4k, cheap junk, and unknown but probably cheap junk from China.
My shield is definitely a lesser experience than my Roku, with the lags and skips, but I can put up with it on most days. But when I want to watch a 4k movie I'll switch over the HDMI cords back to my Roku.
I've been using Roku products for over a decade, but I will actively avoid using them in the future. I've recommended them to countless people, but now I will actively tell people to avoid them.
I have to wonder if they even care that these kinds of shenanigans are a recipe for losing customer loyalty and destroying a brand.
No more surveillance capitalism and a much better, cleaner experience. And the content range is unmatched.