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Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

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Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#541
post #462

... and that's exactly why my TV will never have an internet connection. By now, it doesn't really matter which brand you use. I have analyzed Samsung, Sony, LG and Philips and ALL of them send data about your usage to NetEase in China and ALL of them have ToS that say that they might record your voice and store it for improving their AI or whatever. Plus all of them shove suggested apps in your face, so I'd say it i…

Well fuck. I didn’t know that. I was just about to buy a nice new 50” 4K Samsung smart TV. Purchase cancelled. Will keep my dumb Samsung 32” ass end model.

At this point I don't think any Samsung TVs have cellular connections built in. So just stay away from the 'smart' features. I recently bought a 70" Samsung "smart" TV but the only interaction we have with it is to switch to the Apple TV input. The TV has no network configuration, and it never will.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#542
post #31

Fuck the guy who wanted to suck up to the management in some stupid meeting projecting estimated revenue out of this to ask for a raise later because he "contributed to a revenue increase" to the company. There's absolutely no after thought to this decision - If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it, showing ads is unacceptable, no matter what the…

> If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it Just don't connect it to the Internet. The bigger problem is that at some point there will not be any "idiot box" models at all. The TVs will refuse to work if they aren't seeing the Internet. Then we'll be truly fucked.

> Just don't connect it to the Internet.

Haha, just wait until 4g/5g will become so cheap that TVs will have them built in for doing software updates and sending telemetry when offline :)

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#543
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't connect it to the internet. Also great solution for cheap subsidized TVs where they are banking on your connecting to your network so only charge $100. Plug in an apple TV and you are set.

> Just don't connect it to the internet. Smart TV manufacturers are relying on the ongoing revenue from their software side nowadays, so they’ll usually mandate setting up an internet connection as part of the device setup process, and then only give you the option to change networks instead of disabling it outright. If you’re tech savvy, you can take measures against this, but it’s not going to be simple for most fo…

How "usually" is this, actually? I bought an LG TV about a year ago, and it did not force me to connect to the Internet. I just turned it on, skipped the crap, and it works fine over HDMI.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#544
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so... 1. Order TV. 2. test if it works without agreeing to anything and without internet. 3. return if that's not the case. I have yet to accept EULA on samsung on anything and it works... Right now the ACR is troubling. Telling a remote server what you're watching... Only solution I found - not connected + hdmi to Linux box I control.

As an older comment mention, they can easily add an delay that makes it work without an connection only for the duration in which an return is possible. It is very hard to win against hostile design.

That would easily cause lawsuits as it is clear that the other party is doing that solely to cheat against law.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#545
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some stupid meeting somewhere: A: ...and in conclusion, it's a win-win situation. Users will benefit from ads and our revenue will go up. B: People don't like ads on their TV. A: But they do. I refer you to slides 18 through 25 where you can see engagement metrics for our ad rollout on the old model. If people wouldn't like ads they wouldn't be clicking on them so much . B: I don't like ads. Do you like ads on you…

Well it's more like "people hate ads, but next time they buy a new TV, the ads will make our TV $10 cheaper than the other guy and they'll buy it anyway" It's the same thing in the airline industry - people will complain all day long about legroom and being treated as cattle, but the next time they buy a ticket they vote with their wallets when they sort the flight list by price and choose the cheapest option.

> It's the same thing in the airline industry - people will complain all day long about legroom and being treated as cattle, but the next time they buy a ticket they vote with their wallets when they sort the flight list by price and choose the cheapest option.

Do any of the airfare search sites allow you to sort/filter by legroom? I would love that feature.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#546
post #31

Fuck the guy who wanted to suck up to the management in some stupid meeting projecting estimated revenue out of this to ask for a raise later because he "contributed to a revenue increase" to the company. There's absolutely no after thought to this decision - If I paid 1000s of dollars for an "idiot box" that's supposed to reproduce faithfully the signal that I pass it, showing ads is unacceptable, no matter what the…

Well you see Google selling Pixels which is supposed to be an idiot box to reproduce voice signals but it turns out it's loaded with ads and trackers. Samsung probably followed along the lines that Google pioneered

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much what a pi-hole is. According to my friends who use a pi-hole to filter their connection, it makes almost everything ad-free

Also https://nextdns.io/ on the cloud. I run my ios devices with no ads thanks to this honest service. Can i modify the DNS resolver on a samsung tv (i do not intend to have one ever)

I set my router dns to use the custom values nextdns provides for my account, which enabled it for the entire residence. It was fun to see the flotsam in the nextdns logs. I love this service.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that a large part of this ad- and marketing-driven economy is based on this. The reason they predict their revenue will go up (which it will, at least in the short term until the market adjusts) is because they have a lot of customers already lined up to pay them to show ads on their TVs. Those customers' marketing departments decided to pay money to include their ads on TVs because a similar process was fo…

The truth is noone buys anything from any ads... however brand awareness is a real thing. If you see a fancy ad from a company, they must be a profitable company that has a great product so you might be inclined to buy it or suggest it next time you're looking for this category of products.

I've bought multiple products from mobile ads just this year.

Heck the yoga app I use I saw through a mobile ad. Same deal for the fitness app I use (BodBot, awesome app, check it out!)

I've gotten onboard Kickstarters from ads, and I've bought keto cereal from an ad I saw.

99.999% of most ads I ignore, but sometimes ads are really well targeted and actually show me something I want.

(None of these ads were on a tv in any way...)

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines are controlled and limited by regulation to where its no longer "free" and you can't vote with your dollar cause you are a guarantee. There are very few airlines that offer more legroom and even then it's not comfortable. Same with telecoms. TV industry lacks competition in this regard as well but largely due to the centralized manufacturing. I also blame modern ip law as many of these companies have redicul…

>There are very few airlines that offer more legroom and even then it's not comfortable. American tried. American failed. Nobody was willing to pay more. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/04/business/american-air-to-...

Isn't that because most of the people that fly multiple times a year aren't the ones paying for the tickets? Instead their company has policies on getting the cheaper flights. And people that fly for a vacation once every few years, they may not have enough experience flying to realize the benefit (or, if they do want a better experience, they go all the way to first class).

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, that's how the free market should work; in practice, it's very hard for a new player on the market to get brand recognition and a share of the market. It can be done, I think, but it has to be VERY well funded - you need to send salespeople / lobbyists to the various on- and offline shops selling TVs, you need "SEO experts" to try and beat the competition's "SEO experts" on the internet and e.g. Amazon's s…

I mean, marketing's my background so I get that. But you see small brands like Pine64 and System76 doing it for specific types of (often generalised OEM, "off the shelf") hardware. If they can pull it off for more sophisticated integrated solutions like phones, tablets and laptops, I'd have thought that a TV brand would be even easier. Surely buying a commodity panel off of an existing OEM would negate a lot of the l…

I feel like a pre-order or KickStarter type situation might work. Do a small batch initially, get good reviews, do another, larger batch next year, keep cycling until you have enough cash to maintain an inventory.
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