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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

#361

Post by scarface74 »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #355
scarface74 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So yes it’s your “moral right” to obtain content without paying for it because you don’t want ads. Would you feel the same way if a commercial entity violated the GPL?

Is it a "moral right" for companies to use intellectual property laws to force your children to watch ads? Children are legally unable to participate in contracts, should they be allowed to watch any media, with binding licenses and laws, at all?

Then either buy media without ads or limit the amount of time and content your children spend watching ads?

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

#362

Post by gonehome »

clusterhacks wrote: post #347
gonehome wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don’t like that either but that’s really on the creator. I prefer the patreon model or at least when they put ads at the end.

Honest question, how many creators do you support via patreon or similar? I subscribe to some very niche content creators on YT and am a YT premium subscriber. One of the creators I follow has 200,000+ subscribers and is very open about the fact that without his patreon supporters that his channel would be unsustainable. This was surprising to me - I (naively?) thought more of my premium subscription would trickle do…

I pay for 4 annual substacks, but I don't use patreon.

I generally have a rule where I won't pay for something if it doesn't remove the ads. The podcasts I pay for have private links that have ad-free versions (except for Honestly which I'm on the fence about paying for because of it).

YouTube premium removes ads, but patreon often doesn't.

I think I'd seen some YouTuber with around that many subscribers say they make ~20k/yr? So it's not nothing, but definitely not enough to be full time. The bigger ones with millions of subscribers like MKBHD and such I think do really well (7 figures?), but I'd guess a lot of that is extra stuff like the sponsored deals and merch stores etc.

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

#363

Post by scarface74 »

drcongo wrote: post #360
scarface74 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my ATV 4K. But it’s useless for traveling since hotels require you to login and the AppleTV doesn’t have a browser. The Roku sticks get around this by temporarily exposing a pass through wifi connection that you can connect to from your phone/computer and log in to your hotel’s wifi. The only work around with the AppleTV is to buy a second travel router.

I have a spare AppleTV for travelling and have never had a problem connecting it, even before tvOS 15.4. The router suggestions are also overcomplicating it. Just connect your phone to the WiFi, then choose the same network on the AppleTV and stand near it - a sheet pops up on your phone asking if you want to share the password with the AppleTV.

I’m in a Hilton hotel right now. You don’t get a standard Wifi password. You go to a web page where you enter your room number and last name and then your MAC address is allowed for a certain amount of time.

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

#364

Post by sangnoir »

fmajid wrote: post #335
dmurray wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why one should never use ISP-provided routers. Since ISPs can update/control devices connected to their network, buy a modem without WiFi: anything downstream of that is your network.

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

#365

Post by drcongo »

scarface74 wrote: post #126
cube00 wrote: post #47

The new Google TV launcher complete with ads on an expensive TV or a Shield is getting a hammering in the ratings, shows how little they care about customer feedback. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... Bonus points for making the preview images in the store not show the ads you'll see. If any other app tried to mislead users like that they'd be banned from the store. Although it's not lik…

Don’t buy hardware from an ad company - problem solved. Why do you think Google got into the TV streaming business?

The first time I saw a TV advertised with Google as the OS I laughed out loud thinking "who in their right mind would buy that?!", but then again, quite a lot of people buy a phone with it so I guess there's enough people out there who simply don't understand why it's problematic.

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

#366

Post by drcongo »

scarface74 wrote: post #363
drcongo wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a spare AppleTV for travelling and have never had a problem connecting it, even before tvOS 15.4. The router suggestions are also overcomplicating it. Just connect your phone to the WiFi, then choose the same network on the AppleTV and stand near it - a sheet pops up on your phone asking if you want to share the password with the AppleTV.

I’m in a Hilton hotel right now. You don’t get a standard Wifi password. You go to a web page where you enter your room number and last name and then your MAC address is allowed for a certain amount of time.

Ahh damn. Does signing in on the phone first not work? I'm struggling to remember what the captive screen wanted last time I did it, it's been a while.

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

#367

Post by h1fra »

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.

Well I paid for a TV, cable network, netflix, disney plus, hbo, prime, switch, playstation and still got tracked and ad displayed.

I'm a huge advocate of paying for content and artist (when you have the budget for) but what they are doing has nothing to do about it.

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

#368

Post by commoner »

psy-q wrote: post #124
jokowueu wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Android TV now also comes with forced ads (since rebranding to Google TV). I was pretty upset when the very expensive Android TV gadget I bought (Nvidia Shield TV) specifically to have an external device without ads suddenly had them. They take up the upper third of the home screen.

It takes a bit of work, but you can replace the default Android TV launcher with an ad-free launcher, such as the free and open source FLauncher:

- Instructions for changing the default launcher on Android TV: https://www.reddit.com/r/ShieldAndroidTV/comments/o96npc/ins...

- FLauncher: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.efesser.fla...

- Source: https://gitlab.com/flauncher/flauncher

This should work on any Android TV device.

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

#369

Post by ajross »

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…

If you want a TV-priced display for use as a dumb monitor, just buy a TV and don't give it a wifi password. My main desktop monitor is a 43" Roku/TCL thing that is still running the factory firmware. Works great.

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

#370

Post by qwertox »

nesk_ wrote: post #109
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.

It's only a matter of time until these span their own Amazon Sidewalk-like networks and then possibly use the neighbors smartphone as a gateway.

Like "my Samsung TV" "neighbors Samsung TV" 'neighbors Samsung Smartphone" (or skip the Smartphone if their TV is already connected without a properly set up firewall)

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