I'm sorry to hear about your Roku. Whenever I get a device, I now have to spend time backing up as much as I can, for the inevitable "upgrades" that will hit me. With Android devices, you should always copy all of the .apk files off. I have a script somewhere which disambiguates the filenames and rsyncs them to my backup server. It has saved me many times. It's ridiculous that I have to go through so much trouble to have the same level of stability I had with a desktop pc I would buy from Dell, in the sense that Dell would give you a restore disc that will return your device to factory functionality.
I keep trotting this comment out every few weeks, because it happens so often now that the cloud eats something we own. Probably my most frustrating experience was when Apple forced me to update iOS, but they removed many features that I relied on. BTSync broke, Nightshift functionality that I was using with Flux was rendered unusable. And a ton of other little annoyances[1].
Apple heavily damaged my iPad with an update awhile ago. And Apple won't take no for an answer, and will keep downloading the next iOS update even over a cellular connection, so I had to firewall it.
Computing today might seem seamless, but, just you try and go against the grain. You'll encounter a remarkable amount of resistance. All I want is so have agency over the devices that I buy.
I keep trotting this comment out every few weeks, because it happens so often now that the cloud eats something we own. Probably my most frustrating experience was when Apple forced me to update iOS, but they removed many features that I relied on. BTSync broke, Nightshift functionality that I was using with Flux was rendered unusable. And a ton of other little annoyances[1].
Apple heavily damaged my iPad with an update awhile ago. And Apple won't take no for an answer, and will keep downloading the next iOS update even over a cellular connection, so I had to firewall it.
Computing today might seem seamless, but, just you try and go against the grain. You'll encounter a remarkable amount of resistance. All I want is so have agency over the devices that I buy.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11986500