Hi there! My name is Janko Roettgers, and this is Lowpass. This week: Roku’s plans for Howdy, and Meta’s 180 on Horizon Worlds.

Roku’s bet on budget streaming

Streaming is getting expensive: This week, Amazon Prime Video became the latest streaming service to increase prices. In addition to the annual $139 fee for Prime, consumers now have to pay $4.99 for ad-free viewing. The increase comes after Netflix, HBO Max, Disney Plus, and Discovery Plus all raised their prices in 2025.

Those price increases don’t go unnoticed. About half of US consumers think they’re paying too much for streaming, and two out of three people who canceled a service in recent months say they did so because it was too expensive.

Roku is betting that many of those consumers turned off by high streaming prices will sign up for the company’s Howdy service instead. Launched in August, Howdy offers more than 10,000 hours of movies and TV shows, ad-free, for just $2.99 a month.

Roku CEO Anthony Wood told the audience of an investor conference earlier this month that he has been closely involved in getting Howdy off the ground. “I personally think it’s going to be a huge business for us,” he said.