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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

#871

Post by 72deluxe »

growlist wrote: post #392
neya wrote: 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…

I sometimes wonder if someone at the top is trying to drive people away from TV/film/video. Yes there's more content than ever before but as regards drama etc. the writing is generally dreadful and the stories lack originality, on YouTube the adverts are becoming obnoxious and if extremely one-sided political messaging isn't to your taste, well, good luck finding a single programme that isn't stuffed to the gills wit…

YouTube adverts have been obnoxious for a long time, but it's got far far far worse this year. Unfortunately, I think it is necessary to support the media industry thanks to the diminishing returns from sales of music/film due to the proliferation of "art is disposable and very cheap" $9.99-a-month streaming services, plus the fact that every new album ends up on YouTube within a week these days as an "entire album" upload.

The sheer amount of content available these days is probably what you are noticing regarding dramas / films; I can remember very few decent Hollywood films recently as utter garbage seems to make billions of dollars, so the studios believe it's what people want.

It isn't a new issue though - "Penny Dreadfuls" were the old poor-quality entertainment of yesteryear where I suspect people were saying the same things that we are saying now. The only difference now is the availability of immense volumes of instantly accessible tripe.

As for political messaging, I am entirely apolitical but do see a lot of ideologies being promoted/pushed in programmes, with an opposing stance on any "modern" issue descending rapidly into a shouting match instead of a reasonable, logical debate; it then turns into a witch hunt regarding the opposing party's behaviour instead of a balanced discussion of the first issue raised. Exercise your free will and turn the rubbish off like I do!

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#872

Post by starik36 »

joking wrote: post #601
ice3 wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So how do you do this again? My remote: https://ak1.ostkcdn.com/images/products/is/images/direct/b5d...

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#873

Post by foxrider »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #749
Shihan wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do it, because we let them do it. They obviously can get away with it.

In fairness, how would people even react? Almost all major TV platforms have ads and all of this is on products long after sale. If everyone is guilty, how does anyone get punished?

Well we aren't just consumers, we are also citizens. Forcing ads into your devices sounds like a collective action waiting to happen, especially if it's done via an update. And further down the road some sort of advocacy group/lobbying may be in order.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#874

Post by foxrider »

blahyawnblah wrote: post #832
undebuggable wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that's exactly why my TV will never have an internet connection. That's increasingly difficult, e.g. HDMI offers ethernet communication. I also don't think salespeople care to be informed well enough on this feature. It seems that the last resort is digging through the user manuals found on the internet before the purchase.

Just block it in your router. Everything has to go through it eventually.

..but then, just like some smart home devices, it would either constantly annoy you with an icon or popus about "missing internet connection" or outright refuse to work at all with a cryptic "something went wrong"

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#875

Post by Forbo »

epanchin wrote: post #835
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…

I am not a fan of that remote control at all. I constantly sit on it, skipping through shows; and I don't get the purpose of the touchpad vs a d-pad. No one uses the trackpad on their playstation controllers, why did apple run with the same idea? I'm a big fan of the Roku boxes.

If I recall correctly, Roku boxes frequently scan the network for other devices. I keep mine on a VLAN that only allows communication out to the net.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#876

Post by Can_Not »

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…

> at least in the short term until the market adjusts

This sounds like customers will eventually choose less shady brands in a year or two, when in reality all brands will actual race to the bottom together.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#877

Post by gpderetta »

72deluxe wrote: post #863
gpderetta wrote: post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancel button is obsolete, the customers want to be reminded later.

No! I detest the dialog boxes that ask a question and then the only options are "Yes" or "Skip for now"/"Set up later". I want to confirm "No".

impossible, statistics show that 0% of customers chose "No" when not given a choice. Ergo you do not exist.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#878

Post by jiggawatts »

NationalPark wrote: post #675
jiggawatts wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely certain. I'm in the market for new, high-end OLED or equivalent TV. There is no way in hell I'm ever buying a Samsung, under any circumstances, ever. Their corporate executives clearly have no ethics whatsoever. But that's not the only problem. My coworkers have been to Samsung's headquarters and worked on their core IT infrastructure. They both rattled off an endless horror show of security lapses an…

You're safe, Samsung doesn't even make OLED televisions! However all OLED TVs on the market do come with smart features and adware, so maybe not so safe after all.

Hilariously, Samsung Display has just invested over $10B in new plants to make next-generation RGB OLED displays, but Samsung Vision -- the subsidiary that makes the actual televisions -- has spent so much money touting their QLED technology as superior to OLED that they don't want to use the panels made by Samsung Display.

So I might end up buying a Samsung OLED panel, but not in the form of a Samsung Television.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#879

Post by Can_Not »

SteveGerencser wrote: post #451
kalleboo wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But, do people actually know that when they purchase? If it were clearly stated anywhere on the box/sales copy that "you will see ads on this device" while the other one says "we won't shove ads on your device" I would wager the $10 more would be a bargain to nearly everyone. But that information is never available at the point of purchase so most people get the surprise of see ads when they had no idea that was even…

This is true, I expect to be shafted unwillingly and the manufacturers will face no accountability or be required to show any transparency for a long time. Consumers need information symmetry guarantees.

Re: Samsung TV owners complain about increasingly obtrusive ads

#880

Post by Can_Not »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #474
quit32 wrote: 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…

If a TV doesn't work without internet, I'll just return it and let them know it's not working.
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