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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

#251

Post by freeone3000 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #207
1ncorrect wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising needs to become as socially acceptable as smoking. It indiscriminately pollutes the environment, and inflicts harm on non participants by incentivising unbridled data collection.

The hard, spikey, jagged, foul tasting pill to swallow then: Society needs to pay directly for content.

Amazon Prime Video requires a paid Amazon Prime subscription. You are paying for the content. You also paid for the TV you watch it on, and you pay for the delivery service to your house. There's money every step of the way, so, having advertising on top of that? Insane.

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

#252

Post by jacquesm »

dsr_ wrote: post #151
dwighttk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Bought a cheap HiSense TV for my kid to use as a big monitor. It literally will not work for any input source -- including OTA TV -- until it has been hooked to a network where it can register itself. It appears to work afterwards without a network connection... but I cannot recommend HiSense at all.

Return it as defective. If enough people do that they'll get the message. An internet connection should not be a requirement for buying an appliance.

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

#253

Post by ericmay »

Karsteski wrote: post #236
ericmay wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Invasive advertising is a form of violence.

Words have meaning. I despise the insertion of ads in every form of media, but it is not violence. That's just silly.

We have precedent for mental and emotional harm.

I'd argue that invasive advertisements including but not limited to ads that make you remember catchy jingles, billboards on highways, ads that specifically target you based on profiling ("addictive") etc. are or can be emotional and mental harm. Ever hear the phrase "stuck in my head"? This happens with commercial jingles all the time. What if I don't want it to be stuck in my head but I happen to hear it? Seems akin to assault, especially if I'm not explicitly opting in to that behavior. It seems strange only because being blasted with advertisements 24/7 is normalized.

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

#254

Post by vonseel »

kornhole wrote: post #183
nesk_ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know if you have been following the news about Apple expanding its advertising business. If you don't want a corporation collecting data about your viewing, you could modify your approach slightly and try kodi.tv. I have Librelec running on a RPI with attached SSD as house media server. The add-ons catalog is large and growing, but it won't have all the channels you might want.

Does kodi / librelec have decent Netflix/Prime/HBO Max/Apple TV+ apps? I was under the impression they don't really support the big streaming apps and aren't really of use outside of watching torrented content.

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

#255

Post by Karsteski »

ericmay wrote: post #253
Karsteski wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words have meaning. I despise the insertion of ads in every form of media, but it is not violence. That's just silly.

We have precedent for mental and emotional harm. I'd argue that invasive advertisements including but not limited to ads that make you remember catchy jingles, billboards on highways, ads that specifically target you based on profiling ("addictive") etc. are or can be emotional and mental harm. Ever hear the phrase "stuck in my head"? This happens with commercial jingles all the time. What if I don't want it to be st…

No post body was provided.

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

#257

Post by afavour »

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 care about privacy absolutely do not get an Android TV dongle. Get an Apple TV (though yes, they cost more. Maybe find a used one on eBay if you're particularly price sensitive)

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

#258

Post by madelyn »

SayMyName wrote: post #142
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…

You can still get cheap ones. And by cheap I mean TLC/Hisense level quality displays. Walmart sells Sceptre's for low prices and have no smart features, best purchase I've made in years. We use a lot of Rokus here and my issue isn't the ads, its that every Roku built-in TV gets REALLY slow after a few updates, so now it's just easier to chuck a $20-30 device instead of having to buy an entire $300+TV. Sure I don't ge…

+1 to Sceptre TVs! Recently (past week) bought a 4k Sceptre TV and it was less than $200. 60hz, looks great, the smartest feature it has is a clock you have to set yourself.

Just make sure not to buy the android or roku ones!

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

#259

Post by afavour »

kadoban wrote: post #241
Workaccount2 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hard, spikey, jagged, foul tasting pill to swallow then: Society needs to pay directly for content.

Much of society either is paying or is willing to pay. Note that even in places that we _do_ pay, for example cable TV, we still get ads.

Right but that means you're not paying full price, since the ads subsidise it. So to modify the OP's point, people are going to need to be prepared to pay more for content and IMO we're already at price saturation point now.

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

#260

Post by _aavaa_ »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #68
_aavaa_ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the % of people who don't connect their smart TV to internet is small, then the % of people who will go through the trouble of soldering their TV (and voiding their warranty) is essentially 0%.

The whole "void warranty if any changes are made" is mostly not enforcable in Europe and as I understand it in some part in the US. In Germany, you would just have to proof that your change is not the culprit of the damage. I.e. if your OLED panel breaks, you can still claim warranty.

I believe that proof is going to be more difficult if you're soldering stuff on the inside of the device.
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