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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

#451

Post by teddyh »

netsharc wrote: post #59
teddyh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be surprised if modern TVs didn’t connect to open WiFis; there is literally no reason for TVs not to do this, and every incentive to do it. Even if we discount the ads as a motivator, it’s still a simple solution to get people’s stuff configured automatically.

And I would be surprised if they did... the belief in these sorts of tech urban legends/conspiracy theories that some seemingly techie people have is cringeworthy. And no, Facebook/Instagram aren't listening to users either, it would need too much bandwidth/server power to process all those conversations, and if you say "they can do the speech recognition on the users' phones", the majority of users use budget phones…

This reminds me of the pre-Snowden times, where people often assumed that governments widely recorded internet traffic, since they had both the capability and the motivation, but people like you dismissed it as “urban legends/conspiracy theories” because there wasn’t any hard evidence.

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

#452

Post by matheusmoreira »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #136
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's the principle. This probably sounds over the top, but at some point it feels like they're saying they own you. You're paying them for one service, and they'll unilaterally decide it's not enough and they are going to make more money on you. But they don't do it via a price increase that gives you a fair opportunity to decide on the value exchange. They just start shoving this stuff on you. And worst of all, it's…

It's not just our time! It's also our limited attention. They think they have a right to it, they even think they can sell it off to the highest bidder. As if it belonged to them.

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

#453

Post by WASDx »

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…

This is spyware.

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

#454

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #231
AlexandrB wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not. The mental effects of products optimized for delivering advertising don't seem to be great for people or society (see: Meta's products, Twitter, TikTok).

Cigarettes cause cancer. Some people (not me) actually get value from ads and AFAIK they don't cause cancer.

This actually is a very valid argument. Cigarettes actually provide value to the user. Yes, there are negatives, but the user typically knows those and decides the upside is worth the risk.

Do people know the risks of being profiled by ad companies? I am not sure most people can even begin to understand the associated risk. The few attempts to show people what companies know about you were shut down pretty hard.

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

#456

Post by secret-noun »

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 feels like a Clockwork Orange's aversion therapy eyelid-clamper thing sometimes.

I mute the volume for ads to take away some of that edge. It's one of the few things I can control about it.

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

#457

Post by dylan604 »

reset-password wrote: post #397
filoleg wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will come with a cellular modem built in, and you won't be able to block it. Haha, joke's one them. I live in a nice apartment in the middle of a major US city, and in my last 3 apartments, cell signal reception was ranging between 1 bar and no signal reception at all. Good luck with a built-in cell modem here. Thankfully, wifi calling is a thing working by default. So having almost no cell reception at home h…

The worry I have is TVs also embedding an Amazon Sidewalk chip. Seems like it would be easy for them to egress your data through your neighbor's spy device with something like that.

Is that really a specific chip or just their Alexa devices creating a shared WiFi network?

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

#459

Post by cma »

insightcheck wrote: post #390
SayMyName wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was curious and looked up reviews for Sceptre, but according to some discussions on Reddit, they have build quality issues. One of the threads [0] had a discussion on picture quality and build quality issues. Another subreddit [1] even has an automoderator comment that says getting a smart TV and not hooking it up to the internet is the best option. The automoderator also writes that if one is certain about going n…

Not hooking it up to the internet soon won't be enough with Amazon Sidewalk and other related efforts.

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

#460

Post by matheusmoreira »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #283
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.

> Advertising needs to become as socially acceptable as smoking I’ll hold my drink while you convince America why it should pay 10x for a TV because ads are bad.

Advertising requires views which drives engagement optimization which results in addictive design. Binge watching of TV shows, excessive social media usage, video game addiction have all been linked to depression, anxiety.

Convince people? Any ban on advertising is already likely to enjoy significant public support. There's precedent for this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

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