Technology

59312 readers

5115 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

777

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

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

300 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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 @[email protected] for recommending the brand "Sceptre" when buying my next (dumb) TV.

EDIT2: Shout out to @[email protected] 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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I highly doubt you’d actually lose any rights to a check box that’s bound to “you can’t ever sue us”.

Could the agreement not force OP to use arbitration if they wanted to sue, making it economically infeasible to do so themselves?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Pretty much all arbitration clauses require the manufacturer to pay for the arbitration. That's the consideration offered by the manufacturer to get the customer to waive their rights to sue.

It's actuaoworked out well for me I the past, because once you start going down the arbitration path, they're more likely to just give you what you want since that'll be cheaper than the arbiter in the end win or lose.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

And as Elon found out, mandatory arbitration clauses can come back to bite you, like when a large number of claims have to be paid for separately all at once and can't be consolidated to save costs.