Roku’s home screen ad experiment crosses the line

Roku has sunk to a new low in the streaming wars, with an experimental ad format that blocks your home screen behind an auto-playing video ad.

Roku players recently started playing a trailer for Moana 2 instead of loading the home screen they were turned on. While Roku says the ad is just a test, and that users could manually dismiss the ad instead of watching the whole thing, it still represents a new obstacle to basic control over your device. (Reddit users initiated the backlash,...