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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

#331

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.

The uk's BBC isnt that hard, spikey, jagged or foul.

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

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But Disney+ in 12 months will have the ad-based version at today's ad-free prices. (And the ad-free subscription at a premium price.

Ok. We all knew that $7.99/month was unsustainable long term.

Really, I assumed Disney+ would basically be all profit. Can you link info about the size of the loss they're making?

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

#333
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately yes, I saw the news about Apple. I'm waiting to see what will happen concretely, but I'm not very optimist. We'll see and maybe it will be time to move to another device :'(

Your TV probably has more than one HDMI input. So you can try kodi.tv by repurposing an old computer you have laying around. I haven't yet convinced my partner to ditch her Comcast set top box. So we use both. Kodi is my first choice for viewing anything. The other box is being used less and less.

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

#334

This is a hyperbolic article that doesn't reflect reality for most people. I use my smart tvs for two purposes: 1) to use the native apps for streaming services (and I never get ads except the internal advertising of the apps themselves), and 2) to connect my personal devices (computers, game systems). The native apps are much more convenient than using an external device for my non-techy partner. I stream to another…

Seconded. I use Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV, Prime, and YouTube on my smart TV at various points in time and I never see ads. And I have my Switch, Chromecast, and Blu-Ray player hooked up. In fact the only place I see unexpected ads is on the stupid Blu-Rays.

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

#335
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Or partnerships between the TV company and the ISPs, to put additional wireless networks on their consumer routers that are accessible to the TVs.

Comcast does this in its routers, and no longer allows you to opt-out. They also have all the advertising ecosystem integration, of course.

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

#336
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

It doesn't have commercials and there will be a less expensive plan that does have them but that's optional. So your reason is wrong.

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

#337
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily - it's what the market will bear, not the cost itself. This just means the target market will tolerate the ads, not that they are subsidizing the cost of the TV. The extra revenue could just as easily be gravy - especially because this is probably the result of some implicit collusion.

This is my expectation of the market, based on at least the following two points: 1) Video games are sold at full price and still include ads and microtransactions 2) Cable TV was originally ad free (and marketed as such), until they realized they could include ads and make even more money. I hold the opinion that executives at many of these companies hold the view, "Why only get some of our customer's money when we…

> Cable TV was originally ad free (and marketed as such), until they realized they could include ads and make even more money.

This is why I laugh whenever some new ad-free service launches. People forget history and then are surprised when it repeats itself. Any service that touts itself as "the ad-free version of X," will eventually be stuffed full of ads.

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

#338

My solution is https://nextdns.io/ with a special TV profile that has basically all adblock lists added to it, and then some.

I also use NextDNS for my home network. They specifically have a section for native tracking protection (Privacy tab -> Native Tracking Protection) for some of the major consumer electronics brands, including Samsung and Roku. With that option I've never seen an ad on my Roku TV, works great.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. We all knew that $7.99/month was unsustainable long term.

Really, I assumed Disney+ would basically be all profit. Can you link info about the size of the loss they're making?

https://www.investors.com/news/disney-earnings-disney-stock/

> The Dow giant still expects Disney+ to be profitable in 2024.

Disney+ isn’t profitable once you take into account “transfer payments”. They may not be profitable at all yet. But they specifically mentioned being profitable including transfer payments.

That basically means that when Disney movie studios use to sell streaming rights to another company - say Netflix. They may make for instance $500 million (made up number). Disney+ still “pays” the Disney movie studio $500 million. It’s counted against Disney+ profits. Of course the Disney company as a whole keeps most of that money. But it still has to pay part of it to the actors, producers, etc who have a revenue share agreement.

It was a big point of contention when Black Widow was released.

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

#340
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…

Which brands of smart TV show ads? I live in the UK and I've had three different brands of smart TV (Philips, Samsung and Toshiba) and my experience with all of them has been pretty good. Netflix, YouTube, etc. have worked pretty well and I haven't seen any ads that weren't linked to the apps themselves. Perhaps they're tracking me in ways I don't know about, though?
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