Roku has a problem — its buttons aren’t printing enough money

Pictured: a big reason Roku made less money than it expected from its players. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

No, you didn't suddenly forget how to read: Roku, the streaming box and service company, is worried about how much money its buttons are bringing in. Not because it suddenly started making clicky actuators for other companies to include in their products (what a pivot that would be), but because Roku’s really an advertising company in streamer’s clothing. And it absolutely has prime real estate to sell to streaming services: for a fee, it’ll plaster their logos onto buttons that customers will likely see every time they use a Roku. Even better, those buttons will only launch that service.

Basically, Roku’s best ROI may be the Netflix-red and Disney-blue paint its suppliers buy.

Near the bottom of each Roku remote, you’ll see four...

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