Iterate Weekly - Issue 122
This week we're talking about Roku's Streaming City, banning smartphones from schools, Tesla lies about EV range, making it easier to cancel subscriptions, and Underrated with Steph Curry!
Welcome to issue 122 of Iterate Weekly!
Hope you’re all doing well. This is just a friendly reminder that you can always reply directly to these messages or leave a comment on the Substack post. Feedback is highly encouraged and I’m happy to answer any and all questions that come up.
Let’s jump into this week’s stories.
🤖 Tech
Why is Roku’s City screensaver so popular?
Ok, this may seem like a silly story but I find it too fascinating to resist. If you have a Roku TV or streaming device, you are likely familiar with their “Roku City” screensaver. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can see examples in the image above and the video below.
Essentially, it’s just a branded screen saver that pops on when you don’t press any buttons on your TV for a while. But these days, it’s becoming a haven for creative advertisers.
For the uninitiated, the screen saver scrolls by slowly as you see an adorable little city. A city that can change to accommodate branded messages and easter eggs. Over the years, the scenery has gotten more elaborate and wise companies are looking for ways to insert their brands. You can see the Paramount+ treatment in the video.
Roku has opened the floodgates for advertisers to lay claim to real estate in their digital city. In addition to Parmount+, you may see Grimace coming out of a virtual McDonald’s or Barbie’s Iconic 3-story dream house. And yeah, chain stores like Target or Wal-Mart may open up too.
The appeal of the screen saver is not obvious at first glance. Most people would prefer to be watching a TV show or movie rather than a slow-moving screensaver that feels like it’s from a bygone era. But it’s relaxing and engaging and passive at the same time. There are just enough small details to make you want to watch it again to confirm what you saw or missed.
And to be clear, you can turn the screen saver off, but who is going to do that? I’ve been a Roku user from the very early days and I’ve tinkered with the screensavers plenty. But since the Roku City launched in 2018, I find myself always coming back to it. I don’t often sit and stare for longer than a minute or two, but now that I know there may be some branded hidden surprises, I’m likely going to pay closer attention. Well done, Roku.
Any other Roku City fans out there?
🎓 Education/Productivity/Work
Should smartphones be banned from schools?
Modern students have so many things to distract them from their studies right? We’ve been reading so much this year about the downfall of academic integrity at the hands of ChatGPT.
But maybe’s it’s just the good old fashioned smartphone that is still the biggest problem. A report coming out of the UN even suggests that phones should be banned in schools worldwide.
This is the first major global study of this kind and the results are hard to argue with. The report states that phones lead to poor performance in the classroom which makes sense. Students are distracted enough at this age, they can’t be checking their phones and playing games mid-lesson.
But beyond the distraction, the study showed that smartphones in the classroom also negatively impact students’ emotional wellbeing. Social abuse and other forms of bullying can be magnified through the phone to make in-person interaction even more difficult for some students.
I think most of us can agree that phones in the classroom are bad but how do we actually ban them? The UN is making this recommendation for countries to enact federal bans if possible. France was the first country to do this in 2018 and regions like Tasmania, The Netherlands, and Finland are following suit.
In the U.S., 76% of schools ban phones in the classroom. But the idea of a federal ban seems unlikely. It’s hard to get our country to agree on anything, and this doesn’t seem to be the issue to unite things. Technology can certainly enhance learning opportunities for students, but anything we can do to minimize distractions would be great!
♻️ Health & Environment
Tesla’s are lying about their range
As if Elon Musk needed any further negative publicity right now.
There is a report claiming that Musk ordered Tesla engineers to “inflate” the range estimates on a number of electric vehicles.
Specifically, the cars were designed to show unrealistic range estimates when the batteries were at full charge. As the battery level decreased, the range estimates became more accurate. So drivers would see a jump down to a lesser total as the battery neared empty.
It’s certainly a shady practice but at least the estimates weren’t telling people they could drive much further when the batteries were actually almost depleted. And I’m not siding with Tesla here but range on electric vehicles can be a complicated number to guess. With so many factors that can impact the range, it’s reasonable for their to be some wiggle room and discrepancies.
But the story gets worse. Apparently Tesla has been inflating these numbers from day one and then created a “Diversion Team” to help smooth over any concerns that customers had over the inaccurate estimates. This group apparently canceled service appointments that were questioning the accuracy of the range estimates.
Musk had to know that people would find out about this eventually. I’m guessing that he doesn’t care. But let this be a lesson for all consumers of EVs. And this goes for cars, electric bikes, scooters, etc. Whatever range the brand tells you you’ll get, you definitely won’t be getting that much. If we can all just accept that, we’ll be better off.
🛍 Grab Bag
Can we make canceling things easier?
I think we can all agree that canceling subscription services can be a major pain in the butt. Most of that difficulty is intentional. Companies don’t want you to cancel their services, so of course they don’t want to make it easy to cut ties.
But in the age of streaming services and endless subscription models, people are pushing for legislation to help make it easier to end subscriptions swiftly when they are no longer wanted.
These “dark patterns” as they are referred to, often lead consumers to jump through hoops to properly cancel their subscription. Requiring a phone call rather than canceling online is a common tactic that causes just enough friction to cause people to delay and often forget to cancel their account.
In the Hollywood Reporter article cited above, the author subscribed and then attempted to cancel all of the major streaming services. Here was the result:
For this article, THR subscribed to and canceled Prime Video, the Disney+ Hulu bundle, Max, Netflix and Peacock to compare the processes. Disney+ is the only platform that required a trip to the FAQs to figure out how to cancel. Amazon was the most tedious in terms of clicks required to get through the process. Only Netflix didn’t force the user to reject an offer before cancellation.
Hmm, so Disney+ made it difficult to figure out how to cancel, Amazon made them jump through the most pages, and all services aside from Netflix offered a last ditch effort to retain the customer.
I’m eager to see these practices cleaned up. We’re just talking about watching movies and TV shows here. It shouldn’t be such a commitment to subscribe and such a confusing process to cancel.
Anyone else sick of playing the cancellation game with these services?
💬 Quote of the Week
"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."
-Vince Lombardi
🎥Content Review
Underrated
This week I’m recommending the new documentary “Underrated”. It’s streaming on AppleTV+ and tells the unlikely story of NBA star Stephen Curry.
I’m a huge basketball fan (and Warriors fan in particular) so this was right in my wheelhouse. But I found the most entertaining parts of the film were the behind the scenes shots with Steph and his kids at home and some never-before-seen clips of his time as a student at Davidson.
Having gone to a similarly small school around the same time as Steph, it reminded me a lot of my time on campus. Mid-major college hoops at small liberal arts schools can be amazing. I think it’s comparable to the football experience at some of the big schools just on a much smaller level.
Anyway, NBA fans will love this but I think it was entertaining enough to capture even non-sports fans attention. If you’re looking for some basketball content during the NBA off-season, “Underrated” is perfect for you.
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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