41–50 of 211 posts
I do not understand why the prices of these have not fallen to $0, in much the same way an inktjet printer has. Or why the TV does not come as a freebie with some kind of (cable, otherwise) content subscription. (Disclaimer: I hate “smart” TVs)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chromecasts may be the best low-key (and low-cast) gadget out there. Which probably means Google will kill it :-/ Just use my tablet, phone, or laptop to put content up on the TV. It makes for a pretty nice digital picture frame too.
luckily Chromecast seems to be an important piece of Stadia, so it should be around for a long while
The Chromecast model just seems so obviously right for users even if I can understand why the TV manufacturers don't like it.
Pretty cool article and highlights the problem of Smart TVs well. I don't think I'll ever get a smart TV but I'm privileged in this because my husband is fine with watching movies on a PC monitor and we don't plan to have kids so it's not like we'll have someone in the house clamoring for Disney+ on a separate big screen. Most households cave eventually because, admittedly, it's sweet to get a huge screen with excell…
You can get a smart TV and just not connect it to the internet. Even lobotomized like this, they still work fine as normal TVs. You can also get a smart device (Roku, Amazon Fire, etc.) and hook that up to any TV to stream things (including Disney+). You can also just hook that computer up and it would work as well (a TV is just a big monitor with sound). So there is no need to ever "cave", even if you want streaming…
Why should that device have any less spying or ads?
"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.
The price of dumb TVs has also fallen dramatically.
I'm a bit skeptical that the income from the tracking/advertising makes up for such a large drop in price.
> Automakers, for example, can now expect to see bigger profits from the loans they make on selling cars than from selling the actual cars I've heard of that. Then I heard dealers will give you a hard time if you want to buy a car right out, some will even run your credit without your permission. I don't have the money to go buy a new car right now, but it's pretty sad that saving up and paying for things is so disco…
Dealerships generally can't conduct a real credit check unless you give them an SSN. You can absolutely still pay cash for a vehicle if you have it, but with interest rates so low right now it's wiser for most consumers with good credit to stay liquid.
Not sure how true but I know there's some companies like LexisNexis with massive databases on people, so wouldn't surprise me if there's some some other way to gather info on people.
Then I heard some luxury dealerships can be jerks if they don't like the way you dress either... Yet in some areas with major tech like Silicon Valley, Miami or Austin there are probably young people with millions wearing just a shirt and shorts buying new sports cars.
"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.
Sure you might deny it privileged to your network but for a profit share I might let it access mine.
I do not understand why the prices of these have not fallen to $0, in much the same way an inktjet printer has. Or why the TV does not come as a freebie with some kind of (cable, otherwise) content subscription. (Disclaimer: I hate “smart” TVs)
People aren't really buying base-model TVs, though. Who wants a 30" 30Hz 720p non-HDR display (let alone an old CRT or plasma TV), even for free? "I'd rather watch shows on my phone than on that piece of junk" is a pretty common thing to hear when someone is being offered one of these.
And so we still see, not only the primary-market markup effects, but also the "leading edge" markup effects, where having to have all the best features (larger size, 4K, HDR, 144Hz, OLED, curved display, etc.) that you don't have to have, makes the TV more expensive. (But not that much more expensive. Even with both of these markups, the average "good enough to watch anything without downsampling" TV is still only $500.)
> Automakers, for example, can now expect to see bigger profits from the loans they make on selling cars than from selling the actual cars I've heard of that. Then I heard dealers will give you a hard time if you want to buy a car right out, some will even run your credit without your permission. I don't have the money to go buy a new car right now, but it's pretty sad that saving up and paying for things is so disco…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is getting really hard with some devices. I got a bose soundbar at the start of the year and it comes with a remote that has a few basic features but it is almost impossible to use properly without configuring it via the app and the app demands that you first create an account and then give the device your wifi password. In the end I eventually caved and installed the app and connected it to the internet to conf…
No worries with sound. There are plenty of audio enthusiasts that will have nothing to do with a system like this and there will always be plenty of options because of them.