I banned Roku from my internet to try to save my Roku Express

“Enshittification,” the process by which software and services degrade for the provider’s benefit, tends to be gradual, the digital equivalent of the proverbial frog that, heated slowly, doesn’t notice it’s being boiled. At some point in the recent past, Roku, after years of cooking us in lukewarm water, tossed me and the Roku Express I bought in 2022 into a cauldron of boiling water. I wrapped up my review of the Roku Express [pt_BR], four years ago, by saying: For the price, the Roku Express is a great deal for anyone with an old TV that still delivers good audio and video quality. Since then, the experience has slowly gotten worse, with the addition of (more) ads and of Roku’s own sections and FAST channels, that is, free and ad-supported. The boiling-water bath came in early 2026, when the one thing you expect from a product like the Roku Express, playing videos, broke down: out of nowhere, audio and video fell out of sync. I turn on the TV and, before I even open an app, I notice…

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