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Television

Your TV Set Has Become a Digital Billboard. And It's Only Getting Worse. (arstechnica.com) 158

Posted by msmash from the leaving-no-stones-unturned dept.
TV manufacturers are shifting their focus from hardware sales to viewer data and advertising revenue. This trend is driven by declining profit margins on TV sets and the growing potential of smart TV operating systems to generate recurring income. Companies like LG, Samsung, and Roku are increasingly prioritizing ad sales and user tracking capabilities in their TVs, ArsTechnica reports. Automatic content recognition (ACR) technology, which analyzes viewing habits, is becoming a key feature for advertisers. TV makers are partnering with data firms to enhance targeting capabilities, with LG recently sharing data with Nielsen and Samsung updating its ACR tech to track streaming ad exposure. This shift raises concerns about privacy and user experience, as TVs become more commercialized and data-driven. Industry experts predict a rise in "shoppable ads" and increased integration between TV viewing and e-commerce platforms. The report adds: With TV sales declining and many shoppers prioritizing pricing, smart TV players will continue developing ads that are harder to avoid and better at targeting. Interestingly, Patrick Horner, practice leader of consumer electronics at analyst Omdia, told Ars that smart TV advertising revenue exceeding smart TV hardware revenue (as well as ad sale margins surpassing those of hardware) is a US-only trend, albeit one that shows no signs of abating. OLED has become a mainstay in the TV marketplace, and until the next big display technology becomes readily available, OEMs are scrambling to make money in a saturated TV market filled with budget options. Selling ads is an obvious way to bridge the gap between today and The Next Big Thing in TVs.

Indeed, with companies like Samsung and LG making big deals with analytics firms and other brands building their businesses around ads, the industry's obsession with ads will only intensify. As we've seen before with TV commercials, which have gotten more frequent over time, once the ad genie is out of the bottle, it tends to grow, not go back inside. One side effect we're already seeing, Horner notes, is "a proliferation of more TV operating systems." While choice is often a good thing for consumers, it's important to consider if new options from companies like Amazon, Comcast, and TiVo actually do anything to notably improve the smart TV experience for owners.

And OS operators' financial success is tied to the number of hours users spend viewing something on the OS. Roku's senior director of ad innovation, Peter Hamilton, told Digiday in May that his team works closely with Roku's consumer team, "whose goal is to drive total viewing hours." Many smart TV OS operators are therefore focused on making it easier for users to navigate content via AI.
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Your TV Set Has Become a Digital Billboard. And It's Only Getting Worse. More

Your TV Set Has Become a Digital Billboard. And It's Only Getting Worse.

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  • There. No longer connected.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

      "A WiFi connection is required to connect to an antenna".

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 )

        "A WiFi connection is required to connect to an antenna".

        "Return to store for full refund "

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

          "Oh, I'm sorry, this went on sale for 30 seconds immediately after you bought it, so the best I can do is give you store credit for the sale price."

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 )
            *shoves TV up their ass* *calls bank* *gets credit card charge reversed*

          • That is not a thing. Assuming you can make a return at all you get the price you paid on your receipt whether it has gone on or off sale since, always, everywhere in the developed world.

            • "everywhere in the developed world." In the developed world, yeah, but what about the US of A?

              • "everywhere in the developed world." In the developed world, yeah, but what about the US of A?

                Same here, too. In fact, in California we have a whole bunch of additional rights that most people don't even know about, like you can get a warranty replacement anywhere the same item is sold.

                Some companies do know about it and take steps to prevent it, though. For example Sears changes the part numbers on their products every year even when the products don't actually change. That way they can always claim they don't have that model any more.

          • "Oh, I'm sorry, this went on sale for 30 seconds immediately after you bought it, so the best I can do is give you store credit for the sale price."

            Actually. the biggest hassle about returning a TV is physically trying to get the damn thing back in the box without breaking it. Assuming you get that part sorted out and are still within the store's stated return policy, you'll always get 100% of your money back.

            At most stores you don't even need the receipt if you paid with a credit or debit card, because they can look the transaction up. That's another privacy can of worms in itself, but I digress.

          • Next day in the news: Suspected phone battery fire destroys store.

      • "A WiFi connection is required to connect to an antenna".

        That's cute, but is there any TV that actually says that?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )
          Not yet. I have a 5-ish year old Visio that you can't do anything beyond turn it on, change the input, and change the channels without connecting it to WiFi and using their stupid app to do things like rename inputs, change color settings, that sort of thing. I have no doubt that the manufacturers will be perfectly happy to essentially brick your TV until you connect it to the Internet. I would bet my left nut that you'll start seeing cell modems in them that can't be disabled soon enough.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jetkust ( 596906 )

          "A WiFi connection is required to connect to an antenna".

          That's cute, but is there any TV that actually says that?

          All I know is the only way I could get antenna input on my Vizio TV after a fairly recent update was to disable WiFi and do a factory reset. "Antenna" input with WiFi connected is now just a random streaming channel they are trying to push onto you.

        • I'm sure some muppet already brought this up at a board meeting, but I have yet to see or hear of this being done in an actual TV for sale

    • Just block it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:12PM (#64721562) Journal
      I didn't even do that - I just blocked its MAC address in the WiFi router. That way there is an easy fix if you ever find that you want an update for some reason...although so far I haven't found any reasons.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CMiYC ( 6473 )

        That's the approach I took.

        But that's only because my model does not allow you to delete a Wi-Fi Configuration! You cannot even change it to a fake one because it will not save the change unless it connects.

      • Re:Just block it (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:40PM (#64721666) Homepage Journal
        I guess reading this, I was kinda shocked to think that anyone really hooks their TV up to the internet....

        Are there THAT many people that do that?

        I suppose I could understand at the beginning, to get an update, but after that...what exact "updates" do you need for a fscking TV?

        Don't most people hook them up to cable, antenna or streaming box?

        Why would you need to connect a TV to the internet?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Teun ( 17872 )
          My providers in The Netherlands and Denmark bring their programs over the (fiber) net.
          Sure, there is also a limited offering via DVB-t and satellite but the majority of programs are IP.

        • I suppose I could understand at the beginning, to get an update,

          Even getting an update is risky; from what I've seen, many "updates" are anti-consumer and try to monetize the captive audience. Updates may add extra spying, download unskippable commercials directly to your TV, maybe add new for-pay channels front and center in your main menu (and make them non-removable, of course).

          I have never connected my TV to the internet. The guys who installed it used a phone's hotspot for the initial activation. I only need basic functionality on the TV (I use a HTPC for all strea

          • I still find it revolting that you have to "activate" a TV. Stuff like this sucks because there are not many alternatives. I could buy a monitor and slap it on the wall, but monitors generally are not big enough to watch well from across the room.

            The ironic thing is that I never use the "smart" TV functions. All I care about is HDMI connectivity, because I have some other type of box doing the heavy lifting, be it an Apple TV, or even a NAS doing Plex.

        • I hook it to my network (and thus the Internet) just so I can cast things to it from my phone. However, I'll be putting some firewall rules into my router to prevent this fucker from hitting the Internet now...

        • I guess reading this, I was kinda shocked to think that anyone really hooks their TV up to the internet....

          How the hell do you watch Netflix?

          • I use a Chromecast. Works flawlessly on any TV with HDMI. I can even take my subscriptions with me to someone else's TV.

          • Netflix? lol (Score:4, Interesting)

            by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2024 @07:06AM (#64723216) Homepage Journal

            How the hell do you watch Netflix?

            Why would I want to watch Netflix (or similar)? Constantly being fish-hooked into paying subscription fees, content that disappears over time, dealing with network interruptions...

            I'm perfectly happy with my Bluray and DVD collections. I can rewatch good content, resell poor content, enjoy interruption-free playback, and entirely avoid the incredibly toxic mess movie theaters have become.

            As for "smart" TVs, not my problem. I have a number of displays, and they all work just fine without the Internet. I doubt I'll ever need another (not exactly a spring chicken here.) If one dies, I'll just toss it and connect a different one. The only one I'd actually miss is my projector. But it's a luxury, not a necessity.

            Considering how many people have bought into the subscription mindset, I am pretty certain the "how awful can we make this before they give up on us" mindset of enterprises from TV manufacturers to software factories will get a lot worse before (if) it gets better.

            Right now is sort of a "golden time" where we can still get entertainment media and playback hardware, functional computing software and hardware, even vehicles that don't fish-hook. But it's clearly a race to the bottom. Very glad to have avoided it.

            I do miss when game machines were "shove this disc in and play", though. Still, none of mine of that era have died, and even older good fun is still good fun.

        • How is this modded insightful? Most consumers are not technical, don't care about surveillance, and want things to work for as little cost and effort as possible. You get your new smart TV, plug it in, connect to wifi, and start watching Netflix/Disney+/whatever within 2 minutes. Why the hell would most people pay another $80 bucks for a separate streaming box when the TV natively does everything the box could do? Plus, most of those boxes are -- wait for it -- Roku, Amazon, or Google. Which are datamining

      • The LG TV in this household has some sort of resource leak if it can't contact its phone home server. After a couple of hours, whether without internet access entirely or just blocked at the router, the UI becomes sluggish and even TV decoding begins to stutter. It returns to normal immediately if it can phone home and never develops these symptoms when it has full internet access. There is no software update which fixes this, and actually this behavior was introduced with a software update years after purc

    • Re:Unplug the WiFi aerial (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:37PM (#64721654)

      Even easier, when it says "Connect to WiFi", click on "Skip".

      Then connect it to your Raspberry Pi with an HDMI cable and control what you watch from there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Wait until they add their own free cellular service. :P

      • This is a great idea! They can do like my car does. You get a free cellular modem that's always on for the manufacturer's data connection, and you can also pay to use it for your own devices. In a home TV, it would be a good backup connection to your ISP. They could even do QOS to limit bandwidth to other TV brands so you're more likely to only use theirs.

  • Pay for TV, don't pay for TV. Doesn't matter. Your TV was always a machine to send you advertisements.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by evanh ( 627108 )

      Not true at all. My TVs have all been a monitor for a video recorder and/or set-top-box since the 1980's. The TV remotes have hardly ever been used.

  • I have a Roku smart TV. I use it often.

    1. When I'm not using it, it's turned off and I'm not receiving any advertisements.
    2. When I'm using the Roku homescreen, I might see a static banner add until I start scrolling through apps at which point it's just static app icons I'm going through.
    3. When my homescreen goes idle, I get a screen saver (not an advertisement).
    4. When I'm in one of the apps (Netflix, Youtube, Amazon Prime, etc.) I don't get any advertisements from Roku-- only from the services I'm using

    • Assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:27PM (#64721618)

      The title alludes to the idea that you *must* replace your TV on techbro culture's schedule, so every two years, or more, if you can fit in the budget.

      Me personally? My newest TV is . . . let's see, 2012 or so? Maybe 2011. Tough to remember. And newer sets seem to be made my people hell-bent on all the data and all the eyeballs, so I have no incentive to buy anything else unless one of ours dies. At which point, I'll most likely just go looking for a straight up monitor, rather than a TV. I see no reason for a TV, an output device, to contain all this networked ad-shoveling, data-collecting garbage. I don't mind paying a little more, because to me a TV is something I buy once a decade or less. Perhaps a lot less, as time goes on. If it can play content, I'm good.

      But the article is still written from the perspective of the average consumer replacing their TV every year or two. And I'm sorry, there are way too many people in my office at work that have to buy a new TV every single year when we get our bonus for me to think it's not true on the average. Which would be concerning if I thought that was the most egregiously wasteful thing us humans tend to do. As it is, that barely ranks in the top five.

      • Re:Assumptions (Score:4, Informative)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:45PM (#64721690)

        If your TV is from 2012, you might wanna upgrade for the power consumption.

        Newer TVs use much less. If you watch a lot of TV, it might pay for itself in a few years.

        • If your TV is from 2012, you might wanna upgrade for the power consumption.

          Newer TVs use much less. If you watch a lot of TV, it might pay for itself in a few years.

          Yeah, I hear that same argument every year about everything I own. I'm not in the habit of throwing away perfectly usable items. I know, burn me at the stake. I don't think consumption is my only purpose on Earth.

        • And how much are you saving pr year. A couple dollars, if even that? And how many years must go by before you even come close to breaking even on power savings vs the purchase cost of the set? The only way I can see this being significant is if you were replacing an old plasma set, or maybe an LCD set that uses a fluorescent bulb as it's backlight. I'm not going to throw away something that still works thus contributing even more to the e-waste problem.
          • Let's try it this way: How much money are you losing to manufacturers per year for their ad-infested privacy-raping garbage? After all, they keep doing it and adding more to every set so it must be worth something. My guess is that it will overtake the power "savings" you're quoting as all important.

            Never-mind the costs of those massive data-centers and high speed links to sell your data that the manufacturers write off as an externality for society to pay for.

          • And how much are you saving pr year. A couple dollars, if even that?

            My 55-inch TV uses 60 watts. I bought it for $225 at Walmart.

            A model from 12 years ago used 200 watts.

            The average American family has the TV turned on for 7 hours per day.

            The average American family pays 17 cents per kwh for electricity.

            140 watts * 7 hours per day * 365 * 17 cents = $60 per year.

            So, I will be ahead in four years. I'll keep my new TV for much longer than that.

            I'm not going to throw away something that still works thus contributing even more to the e-waste problem.

            By not doing so, you're contributing to the CO2 problem, which is more significant.

            • What? No. Throwing shit away contributes far more to climate change. It's pretty much never good for the climate to replace something early.

              • What? No. Throwing shit away contributes far more to climate change. It's pretty much never good for the climate to replace something early.

                When I dispose of equipment like that, I typically haul it out into a field in a wagon or similar container, douse it in gasoline, and set it on fire. After the billowing black smoke dissipates and it's no longer a smoldering pile, I then toss the remnants into the garbage. It gives me maximal environmental impact for little cost. However, with the rising price of gas, I might have to use less of that and set an old tire on fire as the kindling material. That would give me extra pollution goodness after all

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
              CO2 is not directly billed to Malay2bowman, but the electricitu usage of the old tv vs new is, so they are actually better off in isolation with the new tv

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vlad30 ( 44644 )
        My 2010 TV unfortunately died a few months back. So I bought a last years model on runout sale and noticed the load of internet connected crap in the TV promptly connected to to devices that stream the usual then every streaming service started to change to ad-supported tiers. Wife and kids collectively said WTF when they saw ads on Prime. I guess torrents are the go now

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eepok ( 545733 )

        Kudos for the clarification.

        That said, do people REALLY replace their TVs every 1-2 years? That seems absolutely insane to me. I've had my 55" TCL since 2017 and there literally nothing wrong with it. I still think it's an absolute marvel that I can rip my own DVDs and watch them via the Plex app via Roku. It's like magic!

        If you have personal experience, I have some more questions.

        Are today's Roku TVs so different? Do they actually behave like digital billboards by...

        1. Turning on automatically and running

        • Well, if you use your TV for apps, you might be compelled to upgrade for newer apps when your manufacturer stops delivering updates.

          On the other hand, why the fuck are you using your TV for apps...

  • When it's first powered on, our Sony 4K television does show a bunch of stuff from all the available channels it offers (like all TVs nowadays, it wants you to use it as a smart TV). But we just use it as a dumb front-end for an Apple TV, so that connection takes over within a few seconds and we never see anything from Sony after that.

    I can't say that I've seen any actual advertisements on that Sony opening screen, though.

    • I love the apple tv, but for the majority of users, they will happily use the apps included with the TV. I do admit, I love the look of 1 device with no wires (or work required to hide wires). Same video content, just the user exp is not as good.

      • I love the apple tv, but for the majority of users, they will happily use the apps included with the TV. I do admit, I love the look of 1 device with no wires (or work required to hide wires). Same video content, just the user exp is not as good.

        An issue with this is the built-in TV OS and applications are typically only supported for a few years - much less time than people typically own the TV itself.

        Whether it's Apple TV, Roku, or whatever, the peripheral boxes are supported for far longer... and are much cheaper to replace, once they do fall off support.

  • Television shows are obsolete (Score:3)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:26PM (#64721606)
    Like 8 track tape, or Victrola vinyl record players, broadcast radio is losing too, soon AM/FM broadcast bands will be like the shortwave bands = only 2 or 3 stations with weirdo religious nuts blathering and panhandling for donations
    • Using streaming SDR radio and setting those various SDRs across the country to pick up AM broadcast, I can say the AM claim is partially true. The AM band where I live is filled with the crap you mention. But in some other parts of the US, the AM band is still very mainstream and active, almost no different than the FM band. Same kind of music and all, like I remember AM when I was growing up. But then I started to notice that a lot of these AM stations are just direct mirrors of stations broadcasting on th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's a UI issue. Seriously.

      Linear TV is dead to me. Never watch it, always stream or download something. The issue is the UI in cars for selecting media. Sometimes voice control can work, but it's mostly terrible. So you fall back to linear radio instead of podcasts and audio books you are actually interested in.

  • Don't ever buy a television (Score:5, Informative)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:31PM (#64721636)

    Buy a monitor and plug it into a device that provides the video feed you want.

    "Smart" TVs only exist to get money from you beyond the original purchase price, and functionality can usually be altered over the Internet connection. They're not motivated to make it better for you, they're motivated to get something from you.

  • ...my streaming device tracks what I watch. I think of it as voting for stuff I like
    I will do anything I can to avoid ads. I will pay, I will use technological fixes, I WILL NOT WATCH ADS!!!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      When I read through the pages and page of TOS that came with my smart TV, I noticed that to use the smart features you have to allow the TV to analyze content you play back through the TV and report back, even if you're playing from a different video source like a laptop or a game console.

      So I chose instead to pull the plug on the Smart TV and use an external Roku box instead. I assume that when I'm using the Roku box it's reporting back home and like you I'm actually fine with that. But the Roku doesn't

  • PiHole blocks most of this stuff (Score:3)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:34PM (#64721646)

    Directly in PiHole's logs when the TV is in use, I see it blocking stuff related to Netflix, Samsung, Amazon, Sony, adsystem.com (more Amazon stuff), and others. Same thing when you browse any news website.

    Honestly, I don't see how people get anything useful from the Internet without PiHole, ad blockers, and similar tech. What a sad (but unsurprising) perversion of the technology.

    • PiHole's are too much work for me. Just pay the $20/year and have NextDNS [nextdns.io] manage everything it for you.
      • Fuck that shit. Pi-hole is too much work? It's dead simple, and combined with unbound is a far superior situation than paying for DNS. Run your own recursive DNS on your network, or pay some unknown entity who's gonna track and collect data? Hmm, real tough choice. Even for free... if I'm interested in moving my DNS away from the ISP, why in the fuck would I just give it to someone else?

  • Idiocracy Anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Menelkir ( 899602 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @03:38PM (#64721656) Journal
    You guys remember how TVs were in Idiocracy movie?

    • Re:Idiocracy Anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2024 @04:08PM (#64721776)

      You can go 20 years farther back to Back to the Future II and see that too.

      "I want (this thing and that thing and that other thing) and the Weather Channel" -- Marty Mc. Fly, Jr.

      The future McFly household, in the ficticious year of 2015, had what looked like an 8-ft retractable screen of 16:9 ratio, and Marty's kid loaded it up with something like 10 channels all at once. A lot looked like infomercials or ads.

      Both movies were correct in the depiction of future (our current) TV landscape. Idiocracy went further, Ow! My Balls! seems strangely prescient these days.

      Wall-E suggests 700 years in the future it'll be the same too, only the screen will be projected inches from your eyeballs.

      Reality suggests chips in you, and they'll just beam it right into your brain. Like the chip Kirk had in Star Trek: The Motionless Picture, the Novel.

      • That TV was one of the things BTTF2 hit dead on in their predictions, except for someone bringing up 6 or more channel windows to watch at once. But in a way this also predicted the ADHD epidemic that would exist in the real 2015.

  • Is there a resource that can give makes/models of "dumb" TVs?

    I gave away my TV in 2005, and my IQ gained 20 points in 3 days! Haven't missed the TV, and have probably read a thousand books since then.

  • Maybe it's just me but I consume content through either my phone, my tablet or my monitors.

    • Maybe it's just me but I consume content through either my phone, my tablet or my monitors.

      GenX'er here:

      Any of my TVs has decent speakers on it's own, and the Sony soundsystem in the Livingroom is outstanding. I have Technics SB-F5s for my desktop evironment, and the living roon soundsystem beats the living crap out of them. Advantage: TV

      My TVs get digital OtA signals (and analog too, in my country, we haven't finished the transition). If I wanted OtA in the monitor, I'll need extra boxes and cables and wallwarts and crap. Advantage, TV.

      The TV in my bedroom has an useful "sleep" function, so I ca

  • Pretty much universally the SMART features on any TV I have tried are worse than an Apple TV chrome cast (or whatever they are calling it these days), Roku, or even just a laptop mirrored or connected with a HDMI cable. Just plug in a box instead to your TV, preferably one that doesn't make their money by selling your data. Problem solved.

    • Pretty much universally the SMART features on any TV I have tried are worse than an Apple TV chrome cast (or whatever they are calling it these days), Roku, or even just a laptop mirrored or connected with a HDMI cable. Just plug in a box instead to your TV, preferably one that doesn't make their money by selling your data. Problem solved.

      Did you read the article? Smart TVs nowadays are fingerprinting the content you watch in the OtA and HDMI connectors. Even if you never see an ad from the smartTV maker, your info WILL be exfiltrated, even if you do not connect the TV to the internet yourself.

      The the kind of porn videos you watched on pornhub using a laptop connected via HDMI? Check
      The series you watched on your AppleTV? Check.
      The movie you casted from the high seas? Check
      That talk show wich leans to some politial aile (or the other)? Check

  • I've gone the route of a nice Sony TV and an Apple TV. Have Google TV disabled on the Sony and Apple is as good as you're gonna get in terms of privacy and performance from a smart setup.

  • No cameras, no "apps", no bullshit.

  • i stopped bothering with that trash even before they went digital.

    in the age of internet, where everything is one click and download away, it's amazing that people still use those and even subscribe to streaming platforms to watch unending hours of mediocre drivel. why should i be surprised if they are showered with ads on top of that?

  • Honestly I don't care so much about them seeing what I do/watch. It's them thinking they can sell my attention... and to interrupt me. That's where I"ll always draw the line.

    ADHD is a medical illness. This feels like someone wanting to charge extra for an elevator, but ignoring that some people can't choose to use the stairs.

  • advertisers have any money left to spend on advertising...there's billboards, Facebook, Instagram, Google, streaming services, regular TV, movie product placements, your own website, YouTube, sporting events, mailers, grocery stores, and on and on and on...how can companies even have any money left to spend on even *more* advertising?!

    • I don't know. I guess one thing that's nice about tv advertising is that its a little harder for users to ignore and block without a bit of effort.

      I honestly don't think I've ever bought anything based on an ad in my entire life. Except product placement in TV shows, that might have got me a few times.

      Some other people must just do what ads tell them to, because if everyone was like me, they would be a complete waste of $$$.

  • My current TV is a 32" Samsung dumb TV that has worked well for more than a decade. It does everything that I need it to do (which is to be a thing for watching over-the-air TV) and I will keep using it until it no longer works.

    For all other content viewing (Disney+, YouTube etc) I have my Windows PC that I can at least control (e.g. blocking ads on YouTube)

  • Is that TVs are passing the IQ of the users.
  • Because I keep my smart TV off the internet and just use it for OTA programming. That, and as a casual video game system made into that by installing APKs and roms and Doom levels using a thumb drive, and a Bluetooth keyboard. I still use my unlimited data plan phone for internet video streaming.

  • >"Your TV Set Has Become a Digital Billboard"

    No it hasn't, and never will. Because I don't connect it to the network. I use it as a monitor, like sane people should. Content is provided by things I can control and swap out as needed. Right now it is connected to a TiVo Roamio, a Roku Ultra, my Linux desktop, a Wii-U, a BluRay player.

    And when I have to replace this TV, I will replace it with another that is not connected to a network, and if that model somehow prevents me from doing that, I will retur

  • I have been a using a projector setup for 20 years. I started with one that was 960 x 540. So called 1/4 HD. Or 1/16 UHD. I went though 720p, 1080p and now 2160p projectors. None of the them ever supported Wifi. My current one, an Optoma UHD65 from 2017, features an Ethernet port, for purpose of automation. I don't have it hooked up. It passed 6000 hours on the first lamp. I replaced it last year. I expect to continue using it for many years we do have 2 smart TVs in the house. One is an old Sharp 3D TV in

  • Telescreens, from Ninteen Eighty-four. As usual, advertisers show little intelligence, subtlety, or originality. They've copied the idea directly from a dystopian novel because ads just aren't intrusive enough &, like the Stasi, they can't ever collect too much personal information about you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • What "TV set"? (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2024 @01:14AM (#64722684)

    Dumped that crap-tech about a decade ago. If I want to rot my mind I can at least have fun doing it, i.e. gaming, alcohol, etc.

  • the manufactureres won't get a single bit of data from me (beond what the get in the initial setup and during any update) I use my tv as a dumb display ()not even network connected for the most part (ignoring ethernet via HDMI for the moment) and have my apple tv 4k doe all the smart stuff ( well running the apps fo whatever streaming services I use atm + plex (local server). If the anufacturer wants sto sell me a loss making product because they cant monetize me, that's on them. Note: comment made before r

  • TVs have one job, and one job only (Score:3)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2024 @10:59AM (#64724032)

    Display the content I choose to play. That content is already likely to be infested with ads of all sorts. If the TV starts adding its own ads on top, I'm going to throw it out of the window and get a dumb model.

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