Roku looks to be seriously tightening its pursestrings. The company’s laying off a full ten percent of its workforce, over 300 employees, in addition to a conducting a number of other cost-cutting measures, as reported by Variety. These job cuts are just the beginning, as Roku’s also removing streaming content, consolidating office space and reducing outside service expenses. The goal here is a major reduction in the year-over-year operating expense growth rate.

    • Infynis@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      1 year ago

      You’ll still be able to stream stuff from normal apps. It’s just the apps owned by Roku that will be affected, which, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never used despite having three Rokus

      • HubertManne@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        I actually have. I don’t think roku had any content that was not available on other free stream services. It came down to how do you like you ad blocks.

      • snooggums@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I installed the Roku channel to watch the Wierd AL mocumentary, then promptly uninstalled it after. That was enough for me.

        Enjoy the hardware for streaming other services!

    • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      A popular and powerful device for streaming other services. And direct integration in certain TVs as the “Smart” OS. Streaming was something they tried to build their offering and widen their reach when Google and Apple started getting decent streaming boxes themselves and TV manufacturers started having usable(while still bad) smart OSs.

      • fishpen0@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        1 year ago

        This market is getting saturated fast. Apple TV, Fire TV both pair directly to at least one first class streaming service as they are developed by the same company. Chromecast is still hanging on. Plex offers streaming content now as part of Plex pass. Cable tv boxes can now also do native streaming to select services. Major TV brands are dropping the Roku OS to roll their own shitty android port.

        I personally moved to the Apple TV because it’s the only one probably not selling my data and isn’t constantly griping at me with some kind of upsell like the Roku and Fire Tv

          • ares35@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            roku is more than just the hardware, or even the ‘app’ platform (where i’m guessing most of their revenue comes from). they have original content and a decent ad-supported service of their own. and you don’t need their device to watch… works in browser.

        • ripcord@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          You say that like something has happened recently to make it more crowded.

          Roku is the leader in this space and they barely have any new competition that they didnt have 5 years ago.