> As we can see in this case, there's apparently lots of pressure from service providers not to be just a dumb, neutral piece of hardware.
I assumed it was the opposite: Roku decided, instead of merely selling neutral hardware, they'd make themselves some extra money by charging streaming services.
And that naturally means services disappearing - if Service A is paying you $1/user/month and you'd like them to pay you $2/user/month you gotta remove their app until they cough up.
According to Roku, the reason for this conflict is demands Google made about the hardware in Roku devices and how Roku handles search results with YouTube open. A Roku representative claimed they ask for not $1 of financial compensation. Of course, they could be lying, but Google hasn't provided an alternate reason.
I assumed it was the opposite: Roku decided, instead of merely selling neutral hardware, they'd make themselves some extra money by charging streaming services.
And that naturally means services disappearing - if Service A is paying you $1/user/month and you'd like them to pay you $2/user/month you gotta remove their app until they cough up.