Roku's New TOS Makes It Nearly Impossible to Sue the Company

using tos to neutralize consumer protection laws definitely sounds like an unsustainable practice.

avoid clicking and set up a class action, the rquirement to agree to new tos is damaging, and loss of access to property unless accepting a damaging tos is also damaging.

this also undermines the rule of law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_protection_law

You can opt out of the new contract by mailing a paper letter to Roku with a paper copy of your physical receipt for the device you bought years ago. Sounds like a perfectly normal way for a technology company to get feedback in the 1980s.

Arbitration, even if it were fair (which it isn't, of course) is completely superfluous because (at least in the US) you're expected to already have attempted resolution outside the court system. The civil court system is the place of last resort for dispute resolution; you can't just immediately sue someone without the judge asking how you've attempted to resolve things.

There's this myth that the US is 'overly litigious' and it used to be that the McDonalds coffee burn case was cited as an example.

McDonalds knew they were serving well above industry standard temperatures for coffee, and I believe there had been other injuries.

The plaintiff (who was horrifically burned in her crotch) asked McDonalds only to be compensated for medical expenses for the initial medical treatment - she didn't ask for a dime in continuing/future medical expenses, pain/suffering despite enormous pain that was likely to continue for a while, not to mention the obvious lifelong problems with having, well, her gentils melted.

McDonalds refused that, figuring she'd either go away or they'd outspend her in court.

Which enraged the jury, and resulted in the massive punitive damages awarded to the plaintiff.

That brings me to the second point: the reason these arbitration clauses are popping up is because corporations are increasingly breaking laws / causing damages to people in pursuit of ever greater profit margins, and getting sued for it.

...which is exactly how things are supposed to work.

Maybe they should try not fucking people over.

I don’t really understand why it’s legal to write contracts that waives the law.

Like, recently I bungie jumped and the waiver I had to sign said things like “I waive my right to sue in case of gross negligence” and to me that just seems absurd if it would hold in court.

The bigger issue is that they have disabled TVs manufactured by other companies until customers agree to these new TOS.

I filed a complaint with my state’s Attorney General, because this change effectively seems to require “additional consideration”. From what I understand of US contract law, that means they can’t do it unilaterally.

Lots of recent discussions:

Roku's Ultimatum: Surrender Jury Trial Rights or Lose Access to Your TVs

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39585607

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39643421

I honestly don't mind not being able to sue a media streaming/rental service over the service itself. It's a pretty straightforward relationship, I give them ~$10-$20 monthly and they give me access to their library. If the service starts to suck, I can stop paying them, if I stop paying them, they can stop giving me service.

The problem is really more in what these "completely eliminate any kind of accountability" represent. It's almost always a harbinger that fundamentally abusive and corrupt people have the reins, and they'll be looking for ways to abuse the attention, data, and money of the people who buy in.

EDIT: appreciate the correction/emphasis on the sunk device cost