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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

#431

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

Completely agree. Advertising is NOT okay, ever. There is no acceptable amount of advertising. I couldn't care less how much money it costs them.

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

#432

Post by m463 »

BozeWolf wrote: post #426
nsgi wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Samsung frame. Hardware: It has physical netflix, prime, somethingelse buttons which immediately switch to that app without asking if you want to close the current app. Frustrating when you accidentally sit on your remote. So i modified my remote, put tape underneath the buttons to disable them. Software: In menu ads, sometimes, for some crap thing like tennistv. I have no idea how to disable it. The fucking frame st…

> So i modified my remote, put tape underneath the buttons to disable them.

This is genius - I will do this for the footshoot buttons in my remotes!

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

#433

Post by michaelmrose »

coldpie wrote: post #222
jtbayly wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you block internet if it will join open networks automatically?

Has there ever been any evidence of any TV doing this, ever?

Honestly why wouldn't they connect to for example a cell phone tower or wifi hotspot ex xfinity wifi to download ads? Just pay whomever happens to ferry the ad to your TV a percentage of the take. Seems like this may well not be the case NOW but if I were planning to use a device for 10 years then a software updating adding this feature seems like a distinct possibility.

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

#434

Post by boring_twenties »

chaostheory wrote: post #328
marcinzm wrote: post #81

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.

Not everyone lives in higher density housing, so open wifi networks are not always a given. Also a built-in cellular modem would be antithetical to having a lower cost TV set based on ad subsidies. I would worry more about mesh networks like Amazon sidewalk

Amazon has had "free" cellular service in their Kindles for over a decade, I'm pretty sure TVs have more margin than that.

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

#435

Post by boring_twenties »

scarface74 wrote: post #325
Steltek wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For travel, I have a Raspberry Pi with a second wifi stick to transmute hotel wifi into my own local network. This avoids having to modify every phone/tablet/Chromebook/Switch the family has in tow or fight with buggy hotspots. I keep meaning to add a VPN back to home (mostly for performance) but I haven't got around to it yet. An upgrade I keep looking for is an external directional antenna so I can get a stronger s…

You’re really over complicating things… A travel router will do the trick. https://a.co/d/4Y6UwOE

For some people, myself included, configuring a Raspberry Pi to do this would be simpler and take less time than figuring out TP-Link's bullshit web interface.

Not even to mention, you can be 100% sure you can get whatever extra features you need working, such as the aforementioned VPN.

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

#437

Post by iso1631 »

xoa wrote: post #157
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 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'd be worried that's a losing battle long term though (maybe even short/medium term?), same with other hacks like running your own DNS and blackholing ad stuff that way. At the ultimate level, cellular modules and fixed data plans are getting real cheap, a…

It's a constant war, and most people don't care.

The options are thus

1) Pay big bucks to avoid it (buying 42" monitors rather than 42" TVs)

2) Do clever things to work around it via cat and mouse (pihole, blocking traffic, wire mesh, desolder the 5g modem, etc)

3) Persuade people to care, so that a company starts building TVs at more reasonable prices but without the data capture

This is a consequence of the fully optimised state of capitalism we live in

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

#438

Post by matheusmoreira »

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.

Pay for games? They shove ads in them, game engines even have support for this.

Pay for subscription services? They show you ads for their own shows at best or half a minute of paid advertising before every episode at worst.

Pay for anything at all? They track everything you do whether you pay or not. Worse: now they know you have disposable income since you're spending money on frivolous entertainment. The value of your attention just went up and so did the opportunity cost of not advertising to you. The more society pays, the more annoyed the executives get at the money they're leaving on the table.

What society needs to do is make advertising illegal. Just straight up prohibit it, consequences be damned. No buts, no compromises.

https://99percentinvisible.org/article/clean-city-law-secret...

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

#439

Post by m463 »

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…

It should be mentioned that "advertising" is not "showing an ad". it is collecting and selling detailed information about people's activities and behaviors.

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

#440

Post by saxonww »

andrepd wrote: post #384
saxonww wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kodi didn't the last time I checked. Note that unless you're running Windows or Mac, 4k from Netflix is not available anyway. In fact, 1080p would not be available, according to their system requirements. Linux tops out at 720p on both Chrome and Firefox. I have to assume this would extend to Kodi on whatever platform you're running Kodi on. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742

Correct, if you use Linux you can pay a monthly fee to Netflix for the privilege of installing spyware on your machine to view 720p video. Meanwhile torrents are a search away and they give me a no-nonsense .mkv file in 5 minutes, to watch wherever and whenever I want: phone, PC, TV, internet or no internet. The choice is easy.

> for the privilege of installing spyware on your machine

Not sure about this. Firefox and Opera both support 720p.

But, because of their choices here - or the terms of the content deals they've signed, idk - Netflix doesn't get as much money from me as they could. 720p is not sufficiently better than 480p (to me) to warrant paying them for 'standard' service, let alone their premium tier at $20/mo. So I just get their basic service.

Their loss, really, although collectively the Linux customer base is probably tiny enough that it's inconsequential to them.

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