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The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

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Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#101

Post by rovr138 »

marcinzm wrote: post #81
uptown wrote: post #53

At home, I've never connected my TV to my network. The few firmware updates I've needed to do were applied using a thumb drive, and I use an AppleTV as my interface. When I travel, I bring along an AppleTV and plug the HDMI port into their set. This lets me keep the services I subscribe-to and use them with their display. This has worked great until my most-recent rental, which had a RokuTV -- presumably setup on Wif…

>At home, I've never connected my TV to my network The next (already there?) steps are the TV automatically scanning for open wifi network to leverage and/or having a built in 4g connection.

Samsung and Huawei are doing 5G,

https://www.techradar.com/news/samsungs-5g-8k-tv-promises-to...

https://www.techradar.com/news/huawei-is-developing-a-5g-8k-...

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#102

Post by rovr138 »

teddyh wrote: post #18
dwighttk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I’d rather get that ad subsidy and never connect the tv to the internet

TVs will soon, if not already, come with cell phones; the ad revenue is larger than what they are charged for the cell phone IP traffic. TVs also reportedly use any open WiFi they can see, and use DoH to make DNS-based ad blocking impossible.

Already,

https://www.techradar.com/news/samsungs-5g-8k-tv-promises-to...

https://www.techradar.com/news/huawei-is-developing-a-5g-8k-...

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#103

Post by flanbiscuit »

Datagenerator wrote: post #64
rendall wrote: post #57

> Some may argue that there's no need to be dramatic and that there's nothing wrong in seeing an occasional ad every now and then. Oh, no, I am very dramatic about this. I will go to any lengths not to see advertising. I will entirely forgo any platform that shows me even one ad, especially when I pay them. Amazon Prime video is already pushing it with their preroll previews. The second it's something else I'm cancel…

Just cancelled Disney+ with the one worded reason: commercials

Disney+ is going to have ads?

... just googled it:

So they are _adding_ a new plan that's cheaper and ad-supported, and they are not touching the current plans. So nothing will change for my current subscription plan thankfully.

> Disney+’s ad-free subscription tier, which currently costs $7.99 monthly and $79.99 annually, will remain available.

and this:

> What’s more, if the Disney+ profile being used is associated with a child, no ads will play.

source: https://tvline.com/2022/05/17/disney-plus-with-ads-subscript...

edit:

A clarification for the advertising to kids things. Looks like it's no ads to preschool kids

> Regarding kid-targeted ads on Disney+, Ferro said, “Yes, we’re going to have advertising… to kids, but it’s going to be controlled advertising with a lot of parental levers to pull. We’re not going to collect data on that.” She added that there won’t be advertising in preschool content on Disney+ at launch.

source: https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/disney-plus-advertisin...

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#104

Post by reaperducer »

a4isms wrote: post #24
dwighttk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I’d rather get that ad subsidy and never connect the tv to the internet

For now, this appears to be feasible. And it will probably stay feasible as long as the number of people who do it is relatively miniscule. But economics being economics, we’re freeloading off the customers who hook their smart TVs up to the internet and provide manufacturers with enough revenue that they don’t care about us. But should the practice become widespread and manufacturers notice a material impact on thei…

they will start embedding SIM cards in TVs that can’t be disabled

The real reason we "need" 5G, instead of better 4G, isn't so our cars can suddenly drive themselves and every hospital with be magically populated with surgery robots. It's so that every item we ever buy can spy on us.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#105

Post by gertrunde »

helloooooooo wrote: post #14
candiddevmike wrote: post #7

Downfall implies a failure or ending, it seems like they're still selling like hotcakes. This is why we need regulation to save us from surveillance, most consumers want cheap and don't understand/care that they're selling their privacy instead.

They’re selling like hotcakes because you cannot find non-smart TVs anymore

They do exist if you look for them:

e.g. https://www.sharpconsumer.uk/electronics/tv/non-smart-tv-hd-...

(Edit: size and resolution admittedly not great)

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#106

Post by blibble »

jokowueu wrote: post #98
xoa wrote: post #87

FWIW, it is still possible to get TVs without this stuff, albeit at a premium. TVs are still made for business usage in areas like conference rooms, wall displays etc. They're often found under labeling like "commercial digital signage" or "business display" or the like, they seem to often try to avoid using "TV" (if being cynical maybe to make them harder for normal people to discover and confuse them if they do). B…

Or just get any smart tv and add a android tv dongle . They don't cost much

if you want to remove ads... buy a product (seemingly sold at cost) from google?

seems odd

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#108

Post by a4isms »

uptown wrote: post #53

At home, I've never connected my TV to my network. The few firmware updates I've needed to do were applied using a thumb drive, and I use an AppleTV as my interface. When I travel, I bring along an AppleTV and plug the HDMI port into their set. This lets me keep the services I subscribe-to and use them with their display. This has worked great until my most-recent rental, which had a RokuTV -- presumably setup on Wif…

> I'd always assumed that if you used the TV's UI and if it was connected to the internet, then you'd probably be subject to their ads and data analysis, but it never crossed my mind that they'd perform the same data-analysis over any signal passing through its silicon.

This is discussed in TFA. It's "ACR" (Automatic Content Recognition), and it applies to anything you watch on that TV, via any mechanism you try. Yes, if you hook up your AppleTV and look at your own videos, the TV is watching what you watch.

Today, it's comparing a fingerprint to a database. Tomorrow a new model or a firmware update will have it shipping your pixels to the mothership and doing things like determining who else watched the same video.

And if this isn't enough, you also have to ask yourself: What is your SmartTV doing with the camera facing your hotel room and the built-in microphone?

If a manufacturer uses ACR on content you brought in through the HDMI port, do you trust them with a camera and microphone pointing into your hotel room or home?

If you do trust them not to abuse that, do you trust them to keep all their TVs up-to-date with security patches to prevent hackers from exploiting them and taking over the cameras and microphones?

---

I can do this all day. Remember, it's not paranoia if there really is a trillion-dollar surveillance capitalism industry out there buying and selling data, and laundering data so that companies can buy it while having plausible deniability that they were knowingly involved in any illegal or brand-damaging shenanigans.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#109

Post by nesk_ »

xoa wrote: post #87

FWIW, it is still possible to get TVs without this stuff, albeit at a premium. TVs are still made for business usage in areas like conference rooms, wall displays etc. They're often found under labeling like "commercial digital signage" or "business display" or the like, they seem to often try to avoid using "TV" (if being cynical maybe to make them harder for normal people to discover and confuse them if they do). B…

However those TVs are not easy to get and, like you said, they come with an increased price.

I couldn't recommend enough to buy an Apple TV (or equivalent) and block all Internet access to your "smart" TV. I did this and everything was instantly better.

Re: The downfall of smart TVs: From promises of seamless viewing to ad tool

#110

Post by Traubenfuchs »

snarfy wrote: post #52
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://archive.ph/Lhr81

archive.ph sends tracking to https://top-fwz1.mail.ru no thanks

If it would remove all paywalls and nag popups I would personally send my browsing history to everyone who wants to see once per month.
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