this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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A great solution is just to stop buying from Amazon. Like, anything.
Chances are you did survive before Amazon was a thing. It’s possible.
I gave them 1 star and left a bad review for each of the fire tvs...they called me about the revie and then did nothing...buy a roku and throw out your $800 fire tv...it is worth it to take the loss for your own sanity
I recently bought a Roku and was surprised to find they force ads on their home screen. It's obviously not as terrible as a fullscreen ad but its still very annoying.
Roku also does not work well with Crunchyroll at all.
You can't get any dubs, and if you get subtitles - they only seem to be in the language the show is. E. G. Japanese subtitles only for Japanese Audio.
It's so dumb that neither Crunchyroll nor Roku will budge.
If you don't care about anime. Roku is better than the alternatives.
What do you mean they won't budge? Is this a conscious decision they're both making to spite one another?
Roku controls Subtitles/Language as a system level which means Crunchyroll can't fix it. Other systems allow the language/subtitles to be within respective apps.
Roku won't budge that subtitles must match language spoken and that each content should be in its primary language (Japanese).
Crunchyroll is "fixing" the issue by creating duplicate seasons - one for each language - but that is a very slow process and it only fixes the dub
Once again I'm reminded that piracy offers a better user experience than the paid options.
It does. But it's difficult to obtain 1000+ episodes of One Piece.
It's actually really easy.
Netflix doesn't use Roku's system level language / subtitle settings so I assume there's a way around it for other apps as well.
Yeah, there's definitely foreign language English subtitled content on Netflix that can be watched on Roku. I don't think apps are required to use the Roku system subtitles. I'm more inclined to think Crunchyroll just isn't supporting their Roku app properly.
what? i can't speak specifically to crunchyroll (not willing to pay for it), but i watch a lot of movies in languages other than english with english subtitles on roku.
if roku is insisting on this (?), they aren't insisting on it for other services like hbo.
The Roku does nothing at all better than the Nvidia Shield. Roku also has giant ads you can't get rid of. They recently blocked the few workarounds people found.
Honestly, you could just flash the fire stick. That might be the cheapest and most effective option.
The Nvidia Shield is $200. You might as well buy a used laptop, a nuc, or an old desktop at that point.
It also already had End Of Life for one of its key features - Game Streaming. So I am convinced it will be supported for much longer.
Roku has done occasional full screen ads too.
Wait, what? A Roku has more ads than a fire TV. 1/3 of the screen is always an ad. For new releases they'll sell the entire screen as an ad. ( Disney's Seeing Red was a full screen splash ad on my Roku.)
OK open to any other options and I mean any....there has got to be someone who can wite hacks to fix issues like this...they are doing it for chrome?
Roku is more closed than Amazon fire. I've read about rooted Fires.
Apple TV seems the least intrusive right now but I've never used one personally.
I've had an AppleTV for about five years+ now and have yet to see an ad placed on the main screen.
the ads on roku do not impact my experience, they go away as soon as i open anything.
*do not yet
Only a matter of time
i will give you that one. 😮💨
Lol the Roku has far more invasive ads. Get a Chromecast, or best yet, an Nvidia Shield.
You pay the Amazon tax indirectly often enough regardless. Huge chunks of the Internet run on AWS. And if it's not AWS, then it's Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure. Shareholders win again.
As for not buying shitty products, returning them when you realise how shitty they are, cancelling contracts when services turn shitty, etc. Yes, do that.
It's true you can't really control who uses AWS and you'll end up on sites that use it. But it's so easy to not buy anything from Amazon directly or from other stores.
Their shipping services aren't even that good any more from what I hear (I haven't bought from them in years).
It's also a terrible site now. It's nothing but Alibaba crap marked up 700% and counterfeit products.
True dat. Fuck advertising. Fuck capitalism. Stop buying crap. Eat the rich.
I to this day have proudly never bought anything from Amazon (unless you count the one ebay purchase that was shipped from Amazon without my knowledge). However I have run into a couple of products, namely quality name brand USB4 cables (Plugable and Ugreen) that I for the life of me cannot find anywhere but Amazon in Australia.
So yes I have proudly survived without Amazon until very soon. I will try to continue to not use Amazon however with some sellers opting to exclusively sell on Amazon, I feel I am being left with no choice. It seems not enough boycotted Amazon when it mattered to the point that there are an increasing amount of items that are only available through them.
Facebook and Amazon are on my shit list due to their shear contempt for their customers/products and employees.
Before amazon existed all the companies they killed for their monopoly existed.
I would but at that point it would be very difficult to get some of the specialty tools I use. I have a whole catalog and it takes ages to get anything from it. Granted I don't use their fire TV or whatever and so I'm not actually seeing these shitty ads.
Naw, it didn't stop any other company i boycotted, and thinking it does is actually a silly idea to consider if you give it a minute to be in the ol' noggin.
If it did make a difference there'd be a bunch of astroturf campaigns against voting with your wallet, wouldn't there?
The only thing that stops this is something we're not ready for yet.
EDIT: wimps.
It doesn't make a difference unless enough people boycott. The problem is not enough people care enough to actually stop going there to hurt their revenue.
Then there's the problem with the current political division, at least in the US, where if something upsets one side, the other likes to dig in to stick it to them and often winds up giving the boycotted company more money than they'll ever lose.
And what is that one thing?
"Viva la Revolucion!", probably.
Hot take incoming, apologies in advance for the lecture...
What is it about the newer Generations that they're so binary about everything, that it's all or nothing, and nothing in between?
How about we try voting in the right people into office first?
And before you reply saying what a waste of time it is, only bother replying if you actually have the Congress app installed on your phone, if you watch the votes that are held and passed, and you can name your Representative and your Senators.
Because they sure as hell not paying attention to you, and what you comment about here on Lemmy. You need to get more in their faces with your opinions, if you want them to treat you with respect and seriously.
And yes, it might all fail anyways, because money talks and bullshit walks, but at least you can look in the mirror and say you tried.
What app do you use?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sunlightlabs.android.congress
Edit: If that app does not work for you, then I'd suggest the govtrack.us web site.
I can see why a lot of people wouldn't use that. I found two other apps, one of which was riddled with ads and one of which was paid. It's hard to complain about people not doing something when there's no practical and free way
If it doesn't work for you, there are alternatives to an Android app to get the same information, via the web.
If you are a programmer, the API being used is from ProPublica.
I can't wait to find out either!