Channels & viewing

[fluke]

There is plenty of hidden gems to be found on The Roku Channel.  Also, I understand all that great content needs to be licensed and isn't given to Roku for free.  Normally I am grateful to the sponsors/advertisers to The Roku Channel.  However, there should be some sort of line that Roku won't cross when it comes to advertising such as deceptive companies/products.

It was surprising to find on the Roku Home screen that Roku was advertising "Roku Channels Girls Night In presented by Intuit."  The first ad to pop up when play the content was for Intuit TurboTax "Free" Edition which is state to be "100% free taxes."

ProPublica had published several articles explaining how TurboTax "Free" Edition is *NOT* be 100% free.

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a pending case about this which can be found here:
https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/192-3119-intuit-inc-matter-turbotax 

In that case summary they refer to the TurboTax advertisements pitching "free" tax filing as:
deceiving, bogus, deceptive and mislead

The IRS estimates that 70% could use an IRS Free File partner to actually file for free.  Intuit estimates only 37% of people that use so-called "Free" edition will actually be able to complete filing for free.  That sounds to me like it only covers about half the situations that IRS Free File allows for doing taxes for free.

Why isn't Roku working with the IRS or one of the IRS Free File partners for sponsoring The Roku Channels content instead?

Full disclosure: I do not work for the IRS or any IRS Free File partner.

[atc98092]

They probably signed the contract for the ads before the news broke about the FTC complaint. More than likely they don't have a legal reason/excuse to stop playing the ads. 

[fluke]

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@atc98092 wrote:

They probably signed the contract for the ads before the news broke about the FTC complaint. More than likely they don't have a legal reason/excuse to stop playing the ads.

Before the FTC 237-page opinion in Sept 2023?

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/09/nine-takeaways-initial-decision-intuit-turbotax-a...

I don't expect them to break the contract and stop playing the ads at this point.  I was hoping in the future they could be a little more careful with what they associated with the Roku brand name.  When there is multiple articles going back to 2019 about the "Free" edition of a product be a "trick" or "trap" then maybe please move on to the next potential sponsor?  Someone a little less scam-ish next time?

I don't mind ads which bring value.  But misleading ads do the exact opposite.  There are some websites, such as CNET, in which I just ignore the ads completely because they have gone out of their way to make it clear they do zero vetting/responsibility for the quality of the claims in the ads.  It is much easier to loose credibility for *ALL* the ads you play than it is to earn consumer trust.

[atc98092]

Which is why I do my best to ignore all ads. I rarely watch broadcast TV, and if I do I mute every commercial. Everything I record OTA is edited to remove ads. I use an ad blocking app for YouTube and generally ignore any ad I see on web sites. I use add-ins in my browser to block videos from playing automatically (doesn't catch them all, but almost). I try to avoid the channels on my Rokus that run ads, and when I do I again mute the sound so I don't listen to them. 

I realize ads pay for the vast majority of Internet content in one way or another. But I can try to eliminate my viewing/seeing them to the extent practical. As far as TurboTax, I've used it for almost 20 years and don't plan on stopping because of this complaint. But then any ads for it I also tend to ignore.

[fluke]

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@atc98092 wrote:

Which is why I do my best to ignore all ads.

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I try to be more pragmatic about ads.  When done *correctly*, ads do more than pay for the content but also can inform and inspire.

Now that the NFL's Bowl of Super is coming up, the discussion has started again that the TV ads are $7 million dollars per 30 seconds now.  In one survey it was said that 43% of those that answered the survey indicated they turn on the big game to watch the ads.

On the other hand, when an ad source becomes too high a percentage of ads or I find the ads tend to be dishonest then for the specific source I also just tone them out.

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@atc98092 wrote:

As far as TurboTax, I've used it for almost 20 years and don't plan on stopping because of this complaint. But then any ads for it I also tend to ignore.

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Uh, 20 years?  So you started in 2003 during the TurboTax 2003 scandal but decided to stick with it?  That is ... o.k.  Wow.  I don't know what to say.

I wasn't trying to complain to you or any other fan in which feels there exist no lines that Intuit could cross which would be a zero-tolerance issue for them.  For any users that *continues* to use TurboTax, I believe they are making an informed choice.

As to other that could get IRS Free File for $0 to complete filing their taxes but would get charge an additional fee by TurboTax "Free" Edition to complete the process, I think they deserve more honest ads.  I also think the Roku brand deserves to be associated with more honest advertisers as well.

[atc98092]

I don’t recall any scandal in 2003, but that was a long time ago and my memory doesn’t always remember details. I’ve just stuck with a program that works for me. I had used the “other” brand (I think it’s labeled H&R Block now) before that, but it wasn’t as easy to use. 

[fluke]

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@atc98092 wrote:

I don’t recall any scandal in 2003, but that was a long time ago and my memory doesn’t always remember details. I’ve just stuck with a program that works for me. I had used the “other” brand (I think it’s labeled H&R Block now) before that, but it wasn’t as easy to use. 

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I would agree with you that H&R Block has been awkward in the past.  They also are not listed as an IRS Free File partner this year either as listed on the IRS government website:
https://apps.irs.gov/app/freeFile/browse-all-offers/ 

I guess if you didn't get hit by the scandal or know anyone that got hit by it, then it might have been easy to miss.  It also requires knowing a little about computer hard drive history to understand.

When turned on, the computer would first start a program on the motherboard called the BIOS.  This would be responsible for locating the primary boot device which is usually the first hard drive in the system.  The first sector of the drive would contain the Master Boot Record.  Sectors were only 512 bytes so the MBR was usually just a highly compact program to search the operating system kernel.  For the 1980's the kernel was msdos.sys but by 2003 the Windows NT/Windows XP kernel was become popular.  The kernel then may still use the BIOS to load the native hard drive drivers.

Problem with this process worked fine throughout the 1980's but during the 1990s there was problems with hard drive address scheme limitations.  These created arbitrary limits to the size the BIOS code would address.  By 1993 hard drives greater than 500 megabytes in size may require a BIOS extension for the entire size to be usable.  The industry determined a solution.  Regardless of the size of the hard drive, the entire first track could be addressed by any BIOS including older versions of a BIOS.  So, the MBR would be modified to load a BIOS extension from first track.  In addition to the 500MB hard drive limit, between 1993 and 2003 there was half a dozen other arbitrary hard drive addressing limits that require either upgrading the BIOS or extending the BIOS.  By 2003, this method had been in use for a decade.

Intuit decided TurboTax 2003 should include a new licensing and copy protection system.  This would blindly write the "license" to sector 33 in the first track of the hard drive even if the sector was already in use.  I have yet to find any document involving the major companies in establishing hard drive industry standards at the time that the first track should be considered a licensing storage system.  For those using BIOS extensions installed to the first track, the behavior of TurboTax 2003 was identical to malware.  It corrupted the critical BIOS extension code and rendered the computer unbootable.

I was never directly impacted by this, but I had friends that were.  TurboTax support would have had to have got *SEVERAL* support calls about this issue.  The impact was immediate that the very next reboot after installing in TurboTax would fail to boot Windows.  What I was told was that TurboTax support initially told people they were not aware of any problem with TurboTax 2003 was just a coincidence.  The truth, as it later would come out, was that is was *not* a coincidence at all.

If I recall correctly, Intuit did eventually apologize and release an updated TurboTax 2003 that excluded the malware-like behavior of corrupting sector 33.  But by that point several people that re-installed the operating system and a lot of TurboTax customers permanently lost data.

To me the situation of releasing a malware-like version of TurboTax that customers paid for showed Intuit had no respect for industry standard practices, for customer data or for providing reasonable customer support.  If they had better researched the pre-existing use of sector 33 or did better quality assurance testing or been more honest about the number of calls to complain about TurboTax rendering the computer unbootable then the customer data may have been saved.

Overall, I don't think any of that to change what you use today.  If something has worked well for you for 20 years then stay with it.

However, the details of the ProPublica articles and the FTC complaints seems to show the morals of Intuit hasn't changed much since 2003.  For most vendors the customer experience should be the primary goal.  Releasing malware-like software for "copy protection" or being dishonest about the price of the product should normally be avoided.  For Intuit, both situations seem to be about Intuit making their profits their primary goal and the customer experience to be secondary at best.  New potential users should consider that.

[Strega2]

The bottom line is that when you want someone else to pay for your entertainment, the people paying get to make choices for their money.  Tax software, some “Asian guy” who mispronounces a word, “black agenda”, “gay agenda”, ads not in my language, drag queen ads, scary ads, “inappropriate” ads, ads that replace segments of the programs, Flamin’ Hot University (FU) ads, ads about hairs, ads about smells, ads with scary clowns…  Just some of the recent complaints on the Roku forum.

And Girls Night In?  It was hard to even figure out what that means, but I’m guessing a 2021 movie with 3.4 out of 10 on IMDB, and no actual reviewer attention on Rotten Tomatoes etc?  If so, maybe a commercial worth posting about was the highlight!?!?!

As for the Roku name, hm, I searched around and found Intuit on several lists of the most valuable brands.  I did not find Roku on any.  Fortune also lists Intuit on their list of World’s most admired companies, but not Roku.  So, I don’t think Roku’s name is in danger.  I mean, I basically think of Roku as a cheap gizmo with limited to no support that shows a lot of ads!  (Fortunately, you can avoid most ads by signing up for channels like Netflix, Paramount+ etc.)

[fluke]

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@Strega2 wrote:

And Girls Night In?  It was hard to even figure out what that means, but I’m guessing a 2021 movie with 3.4 out of 10 on IMDB, and no actual reviewer attention on Rotten Tomatoes etc?  If so, maybe a commercial worth posting about was the highlight!?!?!

No, that movie doesn't even appear on The Roku Channels.  Instead it was a series of tv shows like Martha Gardens.

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@Strega2 wrote:

As for the Roku name, hm, I searched around and found Intuit on several lists of the most valuable brands.  I did not find Roku on any.  Fortune also lists Intuit on their list of World’s most admired companies, but not Roku. 

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Here is what I see as being the timeline for being admired by Fortune:

• Jan 2001
  • Fortune names Enron the number one best company to work
  • CEO Kenneth Lay on the cover of Fortune magazine
• Mar 2001
  • Fortune magazine publishes "How exactly does Enron make its money?"
• Jan 2002
  • Enron is shredding company documents "by the truck load"
  • Arthur Andersen, one of the "Big Five" accounting firm is completely destroyed from existence for being associated with Enron!
• Jan 2006
  • Criminal trial against Kenneth Lay begins
• May 2006
  • Jury convicts Kenneth Lay

Is being a Fortune admired company a badge of honor or a red flag of next year's horror show?

By the way, when exactly was Intuit the most admired company?  I don't see them in the top 50 for 2023.  But if Intuit want to run ads about how they got a Fortune admired company award in whatever year, then I would see that as honest and have no problem with it.  That isn't what their ad is about.

I do see Southwest Airlines as number 23 of most admired companies.  And I am sure they have done a lot of things to deserve that.  But if they were running an ad claiming to always get you to your destination on-time despite recent events showing otherwise, then I would question the integrity of their ad.

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@Strega2 wrote:
So, I don’t think Roku’s name is in danger.  I mean, I basically think of Roku as a cheap gizmo with limited to no support that shows a lot of ads!  (Fortunately, you can avoid most ads by signing up for channels like Netflix, Paramount+ etc.)

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You may be right.  Maybe Intuit TurboTax long history of deceptive practices really just doesn't matter.

Or maybe your underwhelming definition of what Roku is just shows you couldn't possibly have ever read a Roku SEC filing document and have little understanding what they are trying to build towards as a company.

Either way, having a TurboTax "Free" that charges people that IRS Free File provides for $0 is just a really shady move for a Fortune "admired" company to be doing.

[Strega2]

You might be conflating the word read with cared or believed.  In any case, you’re the one surprised by this commercial, not me, so perhaps I am not the one confused by the nature of Roku?  So, you have your hot button commercial, and so far, I have none.  (Which is admittedly easy when you don’t watch them.)