From the article: "[Maybe] Roku is operating with such large numbers these days that every decision is a fly-by-wire corporate abstraction far from the bare metal of the user experience. This means upgrades and features gain unstoppable internal force and the only thing that can stop them is the immovable object of financial results months or years later."
This is the most optimized feedback loop: one without a user. See all the major tech companies for addt'l examples, from AMZN to X.
I like the other explanation: Roku is basically an appliance company with no internal culture of culture, so it just never came up and now they're dealing with all this stuff they didn't realize had anything to do with what they sold.
They could be selling video streaming, or video poker. They don't care, as long as they have subscribers.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Roku is managed by an AI.
What I don't understand is why cinephiles would be streaming through a Roku anyway. Shouldn't they be downloading 18K TURBO-HD straight from the Academy's server?
You don't have to be a cinephile to not want movies to look like soap operas
If there is a video processing technology to make actual soap operas not look like soap operas then that could probably be used to make soap operas watchable.
> They could be selling video streaming, or video poker. They don't care, as long as they have subscribers.
first time dealing with capitalism, eh?