If anything, their track record seems to reinforce the opposite idea. Their company is tiny but has a 37% market share according to previous comment, all while having a shitty and closed down developer ecosystem.
I'm generally pro-open source, so this is not coming from a place of shooting down open source, I'm just reading the context in this thread.
To me Roku seems like they are trying to modernize the TV cable industry rather than revolutionize it. They are following a different business model than most modern tech companies.
Wikipedia has a history of carriage disputes between the company and other companies. Sure, the recent Google spat could have been a one-off thing, but they seem to have an issue with a lot of folks.
My personal experience is that when one individual has a bunch of problems with a number of others, it is probably the one individual that’s the problem.
4. They have 4 listed disputes in Wikipedia: NBC/Universal, HBO, Spectrum, and Google; the first three were resolved (the first one the same day as the grievance).
There are hundreds (if not hundreds upon hundreds) of services provided over the Roku hardware/service including it's direct competitors (Amazon Prime TV / Fire stick), more than I can sit here and count without wasting my life.
You would have readers believe that Roku is out there pissing everyone off, being the bad kid on the block, making demands and being a troublemaker. They have had 4 disputes. 4. Out of hundreds of partners. 4.
You don't mention the current disputes with YouTube and Amazon. If we look at top streaming players Roku has had a dispute with, they've almost collected the whole set!
And do consumers benefit from access to 300 "screen savers" but no HBO Max or other service they've paid for but cannot access on Roku? (Note: the HBO dispute was resolved and is now fully supported on Roku, but during its launch, was not available on Roku) Roku wants us to think so, but my family simply says "Let's just get a Google or Fire stick".
The partner count is specious. The real question is whether Roku provides access to the partners each person wants. Removing, or threatening to remove, top players for whatever intention does not engender trust.
Every TV in my house had a Roku a year ago. Post covid, we now have just one. All those tiny partners and apps on the Roku catalog couldn't offset the fact that what the family wanted to see either wasn't on Roku, or was on some corporate gamesmanship countdown.
And it's so disappointing. They were the player without a bias, providing open access to the TV screen to any tiny niche media player. But they changed. Can't blame them, but it feels like this short term money grab of making media and forcing higher fees for access is the first step on the path to being the next Tivo or WebTV.
It's just because they had a massive head start and targeted an older generation. Also if that 37% includes smart tv's with "roku" built in that is artificially inflating the number.
