Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

flatpanelshd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 960 posts

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#601

Post by joking »

ice3 wrote: post #501
joking wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

samsung (and most brands) sell specific model for hospitality, those have hotel mode, so i doubt you can configure it on domestic ones.

Hotel mode can be activated on most (all?) Samsung TVs. You just have to access the hidden services menu.

well, people cant test easily, just press mute + 1 + 1 + 9 + enter and you are in the service menu. I have only hospitality tvs, so can't test that on the domestic ones, hospitality tvs are charged a premium, so if the hotel menu is present on all tvs, i don't know what are they charging for.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#602

Post by glennpratt »

auggierose wrote: post #172
foepys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also bought a Sony Android TV for this reason. Then last month Google pushed an update for the "Android TV Home" app and now there are many people complaining about ads on the home screen [1]. This is not really Sony's fault but rather Google's but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth… https://9to5google.com/2020/08/18/android-tv-homescreen-ads-...

Just buy an Apple TV, and then whatever TV you like.

So, buy a device that has ads to avoid a device that has ads?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208511

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#604

Post by robotnikman »

jmiserez wrote: post #374
jiggawatts wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got one today. It's so much better than the "Smart" Samsung TV it is plugged into that it's not even funny. The remote control has touch. I can use my phone to type text input. It's fast . It's elegant and slick. It has no ads. It has options that I care about. It doesn't waste my time with options I don't care about. The Samsung TV on the other hand was a flagship model. Top of the line. Best of the best. Jus…

Yes, and my 2019 model recently started showing this: > Support for the Ambient mode Headlines Service is scheduled to end on September 30, 2020. We thank you for using the service and we look forward to providing an improved alternative in the near future I'm not going to buy a new TV every year. "Smart" features that are discontinued after ~1 year are worse than worthless, it's just clutter in the menus at this poi…

One of my old TVs' remote has the Sony Vue button on it. That didn't age well

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#605

Post by rootusrootus »

choward wrote: post #574
rootusrootus wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you know it's not using open wifi networks?

I don't. There aren't any open wifi networks anywhere near my home, though. I assume if it did that someone would have noticed by now. That's a naive assumption, but given how many people actually look for such behavior, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#606

Post by glennpratt »

quit32 wrote: post #445
nelaboras wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, try to buy a high end non-smart TV. Near impossible

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.

> Plug in an apple TV and you are set.

https://tidbits.com/2020/01/16/why-is-the-apple-tv-constantl...

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#607

Post by tomc1985 »

reaperducer wrote: post #363
taneq wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that this "engagement" will mostly be just annoyed customers mis-clicking or trying whatever it takes to dismiss the ad and not actually intending to purchase the advertised product "Amazing! The smaller we make the 'X' button, the more people love them!"

Or make the X button almost the same color as the background. TuneIn does this.

The fact that they include an X button at all seems like a concession that I'm not sure how long will last

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#609

Post by tomc1985 »

dvtrn wrote: post #510
summitsummit wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best method I've found to increase positive engagement is actually to just have a fake 'x' such that clicking it just triggers the ad. I've noticed this more frequently on the web nowadays, and based on the click through rates, the target demographic is absolutely _obsessed_ over this feature.

Don't get me started on dialog boxes that put the "cancel" button on the wrong side. Much like toilet paper, there is one way to display it, all other methods are heresy worthy of nothing less than immediate exterminatus. (partially kidding, but only partially.)

But there isn't only one way to order it. Some OS' (I forgot which) had convention dictate that the positive confirmation button was in the rightmost corner, with other lesser buttons to the left. In this order, "Cancel" appears first, but further from the corner.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#610

Post by jancsika »

Nextgrid wrote: post #211
avian wrote: 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…

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…

> (looking at the companies who buy Google AdWords on their own brand - if someone's searching for your brand on Google your website will already be the top result - a click on the ad is not a true "conversion" in this case and is just wasted money)

Except that Google lets anyone else advertise in that slot above your brand. And as we've seen some companies can confuse the customers and steal them away in such an ad.

If we tacitly accept a search engine allowing such phishing expeditions in those ads, then this kind of spending is the necessary and only step companies can take.

Post reply on HN