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Roku TV bricked until agreeing to new terms of service (programming.dev)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by DaleGribble88@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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See title - very frustrating. There is no way to continue to use the TV without agreeing to the terms. I couldn't use different inputs, or even go to settings from the home screen and disconnect from the internet to disable their services. If I don't agree to their terms, then I don't get access to their new products. That sucks, but fine - I don't use their services except for the TV itself, and honestly, I'd rather by a dumb TV with a streaming box anyway, but I can't find those anymore.

Anyway, the new terms are about waiving your right to a class action lawsuit. It's weird to me because I'd never considered filing a class action lawsuit against Roku until this. They shouldn't be able to hold my physical device hostage until I agree to new terms that I didn't agree at the time of purchase or initial setup.

I wish Roku TVs weren't cheap walmart brand sh*t. Someone with some actual money might sue them and sort this out...

EDIT: Shout out to @testfactor@lemmy.world for recommending the brand "Sceptre" when buying my next (dumb) TV.

EDIT2: Shout out to @0110010001100010@lemmy.world for recommending LG smart TVs as a dumb-TV stand in. They apparently do require an agreement at startup, which is certainly NOT ideal, but the setup can be completed without an internet connection and it remembers input selection on powerup. So, once you have it setup, you're good to rock and roll.

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[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

Show me one piece of technology in your life that didn't come with T&C that put you at a disadvantage against the manufacturer, I'll show you ten fairies, a unicorn, and the herald of darkness.

My grandmother has a Philips dumb TV that doesn't have any network connectivity and it still showed a click-through T&C. If you can't get something like that in your region, ship from the EU, they're still sold here.

[–] Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

My computer was built from pieces of other computers, to which I installed linux and never had to agree to anything. Now show me those ten fairies, the unicorn, and the herald of darkness please...

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

You agreed to a lot of stuff just by installing Linux and the userspace. Even the MIT license has a limitation of liability clause - if the maintainer published malicious code (like node-ipc on NPM that would nuke the computer if it had a Russian IP), you'd have a difficult time bringing that to court.

We just usually don't care about it because it's not as disruptive as a big corpo's legal goatse, and FOSS maintainers tend to be better people than corporate lawyers.

[–] Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 4 points 8 months ago

The terms of linux don't come into play unless I try to re-use some other licensed code to make a profit, and that would still fall under copyright law rather than any kind of terms&services clause. Installing a piece of software doesn't constitute an agreement unless there are clear terms given at the beginning of the installation (and even then it has been pretty questionable in court cases). There was nothing presented to me to agree to during the installation and I've never once been asked to agree to anything during the installation of any software on my computer. There's no need for something like this in most linux software other than the standard disclaimer that it comes with no warranty. Still not anything I had to click to agree to, it just happens to be on the websites for the distributions.

Even if you want to try and pretend that I somehow agreed so some nonsense conditions by installing linux, it still doesn't meet your conditions of putting myself at a disadvantage to the manufacturer. Surely you're not trying to suggest that my "disadvantage" is that I can't take a group to court for my own failure to use software which was freely given and distributed, and of which very little was even written by the distribution maintainers? That would be as absurd as claiming that I had to agree to an EULA before installing my operating system. Hell I don't even agree to collecting data about package management on my system.

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