Live data from Hacker News

The falling price of a TV set

theoutline.com

1–10 of 211 posts

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#2
The one thing I never understood about this is, aren't you just free to not hookup your TV to the WiFi? I've bought SmartTVs and have just used them as "dumb" TVs and they work perfectly fine. Aren't you there capturing the benefit of this supposedly lower price without having to give up any personal data back?

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#3
"The trade-offs for cheap TVs is that customers are themselves becoming the product for TV makers [...] For something to be as cheap as a great TV, people have to give something up — whether they know it or not."

Just never give the TV its own direct connection to the internet. Use another device that you do trust, to feed the big screen its content.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#4
I'm optimistic about the next 5 years of SmartTV market evolution. It's a relatively new platform and as the devices reach certain market saturation points (and play nicer with phones) I think we'll start to see a lot of really interesting applications. They're also very cheap compared to other devices.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#5

The one thing I never understood about this is, aren't you just free to not hookup your TV to the WiFi? I've bought SmartTVs and have just used them as "dumb" TVs and they work perfectly fine. Aren't you there capturing the benefit of this supposedly lower price without having to give up any personal data back?

They're relying on most people being uneducated about how their TV is spying on them.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#6

The one thing I never understood about this is, aren't you just free to not hookup your TV to the WiFi? I've bought SmartTVs and have just used them as "dumb" TVs and they work perfectly fine. Aren't you there capturing the benefit of this supposedly lower price without having to give up any personal data back?

But people want to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime or other stream services. Modern smart TVs have those integrated.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#7

The one thing I never understood about this is, aren't you just free to not hookup your TV to the WiFi? I've bought SmartTVs and have just used them as "dumb" TVs and they work perfectly fine. Aren't you there capturing the benefit of this supposedly lower price without having to give up any personal data back?

I would imagine that the TV manufacturers get paid per unit sold with the ad-serving software installed, in addition to ad views.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#8
post #4

I'm optimistic about the next 5 years of SmartTV market evolution. It's a relatively new platform and as the devices reach certain market saturation points (and play nicer with phones) I think we'll start to see a lot of really interesting applications. They're also very cheap compared to other devices.

I think the concept of a smart TV is a good one its just the implementation is always awful. It is useful to be able to stream content directly to your tv but every single smart tv I have seen has a slugish UI, is awkward, has random bugs, becomes unsupported by the OEM after a few years and is now insecure and gets ransomware. And then OEMs crap it up themselves and fill the OS with adverts and tracking.

After all that its just so much simpler to buy a tv thats just a dumb screen and plug in a smart layer on top via hdmi.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#9

The one thing I never understood about this is, aren't you just free to not hookup your TV to the WiFi? I've bought SmartTVs and have just used them as "dumb" TVs and they work perfectly fine. Aren't you there capturing the benefit of this supposedly lower price without having to give up any personal data back?

And as long as they don't try to connect to any public wifi they see...

https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/network/map?zip=87111

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#10

The one thing I never understood about this is, aren't you just free to not hookup your TV to the WiFi? I've bought SmartTVs and have just used them as "dumb" TVs and they work perfectly fine. Aren't you there capturing the benefit of this supposedly lower price without having to give up any personal data back?

They're relying on most people being uneducated about how their TV is spying on them.

And even when they find out they don't really have other options without a lot of hassle and research. This is why I think the GDPR was great. Its not just "We are spying on you, if you don't like it then turn off your tv" It requires that you have an option to say no while still using the product/service.
Post reply on HN