They're not "smart" TVs. They're TVs with shitty android spyware boxes attached.
Stop using that garbage. Don't connect it to a network, just use it as a display.
If you need to watch YouTube on your TV go and grab an OSMC (Kodi-based OS for media boxes) media box. You can get a pre-built one for around $100, or install it yourself on a raspberry pi.
These manufacturers depend on you being lazy and accepting their spyware. You will save yourself so much more headache in the long run if you control your own hardware and software.
Trying to navigate through the world without some minimal knowledge of computers means you're going to get taken by every scam like what Roku is pulling.
Using something like OSMC (or buying a Vero is you don't want to mess around with the setup) will let you control what runs on your player.
Until you do that, you're paying some random company while also giving root access on a device in your house and letting them waste your time with ads.
All you get out of the deal is avoiding having to learn how to use a new piece of software. A Pyrrhic victory due to the fact that you have to learn to use Roku.
I'd rather spend a few hours learning how to setup Kodi. It's free software, you don't pay for it and it's Free software, you control it with no strings attached.
Go look at the down votes on all your posts and just how universally unpopular your take is - That's called being wrong. That's fine, you can be wrong sometimes, that's okay. It doesn't define you, but stop digging in the wrong direction.
I can pay for music, I often don't on principal. I work to find other ways to contribute to artists as directly as I can (patreon, merch, shows, etc). I'm not alone in that. You had some weird guilt socialized into you that tells you your value is in what you spend and own. Protest at any level is valid. Copyright law is bullshit, DMCA takedowns are bullshit, DRM and digital streaming music that you never actually legally own is all bullshit. Anything you can do to make that broken system nervous or hurt is a great and valuable thing to broader society.
You are unequivocally wrong here, you're the last person to realize that, but you still can realize it here and now today and go forward from here. How about it, take the olive branch, bud?
Shut up. Stop making every thread about your piracy agenda. Nobody cares. And this isn't even remotely related to the topic in this case. Apparently you don't even know what Roku is.
I only have my roku tv because I got it dirt cheap ages ago, I don't use it all that often and no good enough reason to replace it, I'm already considering replacing it with a dumb tv and just hooking up my laptop to it. If I ever experience this, it will make the cost of a new dumb tv 1000% worth it.
It's capitalism... When every CEO, Board Member, and shareholder wants a yacht, it's literally never enough. They even created a term to describe this inevitable deterioration of every company's product: enshittification.
I don't understand the question. I'm reacting to this story, what the company is doing, without distinction between the branded TVs and peripheral devices.
Ive never looked into it but how viable is a raspberry pi zero for this? I mean, is the hardware powerful enough and is there software available for easy TV use? Potentially paired with an android bluetooth remote.
I don't have personal experience trying to do that specifically but the zero is a really underpowered device that's sluggish even updating itself. I've tried streaming games through a pi 4 which is way more powerful and even it struggled with the video being choppy, though it is more intensive than just streaming video by itself.
You'd probably have good luck with a pi 4 or 5, though, and they aren't very big either.
You are right. Ive looked into it and it lacks memory for what I'd want out of it. Pi4/5 would certainly work though it would no longer be the "stick" form factor.
Tried this with streaming from the cable box, and it did not work really well. Upgraded to a Pi 4, which now runs a full Kodi MediaCenter and is connected via Gigabit Ethernet to the cablebox. I use a Logitech harmony with an IR USB dongle, which was a bit clunky to get to work because it's old, there's probably much easier Bluetooth solutions available, or you can just use your phone as remote.
All in all I fiddled around an afternoon to get the whole thing to work, there's tons of how tos on the web.