this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
886 points (98.6% liked)

Technology

59021 readers
2956 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] daddy32@lemmy.world 249 points 2 months ago (12 children)

"each new connected TV platform user generates around $5 per quarter in data and advertising revenue."

Fuck me, this is the amount of money that's enough motivation for them to ruin my experience and make me angry?

I guess regular users have much higher tolerance to ads than me, but our home has a strict zero ad policy.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 74 points 2 months ago (4 children)

A quick check online says that Samsung--which has about 25% of the global market--sold at least 1M OLED televisions and 8.3M QLED televisions in 2023. So, let's say that they sell 9.5M televisions annually (I'm not sure if the numbers are global or US-only); that's $190M in pure profit from advertising alone. For a billion-dollar plus corporation, that might seem small, but it's certainly enough to get them to take notice.

[–] ItsComplicated@sh.itjust.works 49 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Samsung is also trying to make its ACR data more valuable for ad targeting, including through a deal signed in December with analytics firm Experian.

This should add to their profits.

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 40 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Experian, the ~~social credit score~~ credit rating company? Fuuuuuck

[–] PlantJam@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Experian has a program where you connect your bank account and they monitor transactions for things that could improve your credit by a couple points. I'm sure they're not also harvesting the rest of your data to use in their analytics, right?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's even better for them: those $190M are per-year for the lifetime of that TV.

So if for simplification we said they also sold 9.5M TVs in 2021 and again in 2022, in the year of 2024 the will be making $570M from the TVs they sold in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

If Samsung TVs are used in average for 10 years, in 2033 they will still be making money from TVs sold in 2024 and all the years in between. If their rate of sales remains 9.5M per year and how much they generate per quarter in data and advertising revenue from those TVs remains $5 (true, all big simplifications), by 2033 they will be making $1.90 BILLIONS from just this in addition to what they make from selling TVs.

No wonder they're full in on this monetization of users even whilst making user experience significantly worse - they would need to lose a huge number of sales due to this for it to not be worth it for them.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[–] DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world 140 points 2 months ago (7 children)

I pity the poor fool who sets up their smart TV instead of just grabbing an HDMI cable and plugging in their computer.

[–] cRazi_man@lemm.ee 112 points 2 months ago (2 children)

That is beyond the capabilities of normies.

My wife would agree with this:

Media PC

And I've got Plex running on an always on NAS.

[–] BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 29 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Lmao that greentext was literally me before I finally set up arrstack. One of the best investments of my time, it has definitely paid off over many years of just having things automatically download.

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ChillPill@lemmy.world 36 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Ive been pretty happy so far with roku and blocking stuff with pihole, but every day I am more and more tempted to build a media pc...

[–] MagicShel@programming.dev 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

This is the way to go. I tried pihole using Samsung smart features, but if you block the telemetry eventually your apps stop working and you can't get them working again without doing a factory reset with blocking down. It's prohibitively a pain in the ass, taking hours every time YouTube stops working.

Never had any issues with Roku on pihole.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 102 points 2 months ago (2 children)

i for one cannot wait for this future

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Have you guys started the new season of oww my balls?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 28 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I went to a buddy's house to watch TV and that's how his Xbox Live looks like.

Like they're so oblivious and he's paying for that shit.

[–] Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

With that level of ads, they should get paid to watch it.

[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Shut up and drink your verification can

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] teft@lemmy.world 67 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Mine is a monitor and nothing more.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 63 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I am so genuinely surprised that there isnt a bigger movement to hack TVs to replace the OS's on them with non-invasive open software alternatives.

Especially with shit like this.

[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 35 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Because it’s not actually necessary; leave the TV isolated from the internet and use a set-top box (Apple TV, Shield, game console) as the media player.

[–] GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 31 points 2 months ago (14 children)

While I agree, I think this solution is some nonsense. I bought a "TV" and paid for all the hardware and software that went into it, but I essentially have to use it as a monitor with my own hardware to escape the enshittification.

load more comments (14 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 60 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Don't give your TV the wifi password, kids. No, you don't need to 'finish setting up' your TV; it works just fine as a dumb display.

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Next time I have to get a new TV I think I'll just get a large computer monitor and stream content via an old mini PC with Linux installed on it. Not an ideal solution, but I'm so tired of this invasive bullshit. At least that will cut out some of its vectors.

After the recent Roku TOS fiasco I'm done with them. If manufacturers won't give us a viable situation we will make one ourselves.

Anyone know a good OS setup for reduced ad streaming? I know about Pi-Holes, but I'm talking about a way of actually streaming content (in addition to blocking ads at our near the router level).

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 55 points 2 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Frozyre@kbin.melroy.org 54 points 2 months ago (3 children)

My phone is a billboard. My TV is a billboard. My PC is sometimes a billboard.

Like, what hasn't advertisement infected?

I think it's about time we just harass marketers back, but not with advertisements, but with other means. Enough so they get the message.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 36 points 2 months ago

Ironically the billboards in my town seem to be disappearing due to lack of use.

The billboards are the only thing that aren't billboards.

[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

“We estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures.” ~Nolan Sorrento

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ItsComplicated@sh.itjust.works 45 points 2 months ago (10 children)

Average users will not have the knowledge or patience for work arounds.

Imo, the larger problem seems to be the majority of users appear to be fine with ads and data collection just to watch a movie or series.

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 44 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Imo, the larger problem seems to be ~~the majority of users appear to be fine with ads and data collection~~ a lax and ineffective regulation.

"Voting with your wallets" is a false premise dreamed up by corporate to avoid govt regulation and has not and will never be a real thing that works in this world of monopoly and lack of option.

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] nodrod@lemmy.world 42 points 2 months ago (2 children)

First thing I thought of, Idiocracy, love that movie.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 34 points 2 months ago (3 children)

My 10 year old TV which I watch 10 year old TV-series via HDMI from? I don't think so.

Tomorrow there's going to be article about how my car spies on me as if that's not 15 years old too. Or something about my office job that I don't have.

I'm becoming irrelevant. Not the target audience for anything.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago

That has also been my strategy (both for TVs and cars), but that doesn't mean it's reasonable to pretend that it's a solution for the general public or that consumer-protection regulation isn't both abundantly warranted and sorely needed.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] chemicalprophet@lemm.ee 33 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I can barely see the ads whilst sailing the high seas. IP is the fakest of P.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] noisypine@infosec.pub 32 points 2 months ago (12 children)

Disconnected my TV from the Internet. I stream media from a PC on my lan to Kodi running on a fire stick. Setup openwrt to drop all packets to wan from the fire stick. These companies can get fucked and if they ever figure out a way to stop me from owning my devices, I'll just take up some new hobbies and be done with it all.

load more comments (12 replies)
[–] Eric_Pollock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (11 children)

Server to host media. Super easy to set up and can run on a Windows client. Don't even need an independent server to run it on. https://jellyfin.org/

https://kodi.tv/ (or https://libreelec.tv/ for an OS that boots to just Kodi)

Application to watch through Kodi https://github.com/jellyfin/jellycon

Client to run Kodi on: MeLE PCG02 Mini PC Stick https://a.co/d/1EGnekO

If you didn't want to install LibreELEC to the PC and just want to keep Windows, you could run Kodi in Kiosk mode and it would boot directly to it just like LibreELEC.

I have not watched normal TV in years, let alone an ad on my TV. I spoke to my neighbors one day and figured out they were paying ~$60 a month for all their streaming services, and they're STILL getting ads...

Stuff like this is unacceptable, and I refuse to partake in the lunacy and delusion that is modern television.

load more comments (11 replies)
[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Not mine. My TV's my absolute digital bitch. It lets me do anything I want AND nothing, unlike Warren Buffet's kids

[–] DJDarren@thelemmy.club 26 points 2 months ago (3 children)

My TV is a smart TV whose smart features I never, ever use because the first thing it does is switch to the input my Apple TV is on.

Ironic really that the reason I chose an LG is because webOS seems less cunty than Android TV and whatever shit Samsung are offering. But I still never use it.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Unlocalhost@lemmy.world 25 points 2 months ago (13 children)

Start buying commercial displays. Cost more but will be about as close to a dumb tv. You will have to provide your own smart device for apps ...

load more comments (13 replies)
[–] kamen@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (16 children)

Since at one point in the near future I'll be shopping for a TV, is there such a thing as a good quality panel TV that is dumb? I intend to hook it up to a PC or a set top box. Alternatively, is there a smart TV that can be easily bootloader unlocked and rooted without consequences (similarly to how a Pixel phone can)? I realise this is even more niche than unlocking/rooting a phone, but still, someone might have ideas.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I just bought a smart TV, updated the software, and disconnected it from the Internet, only allowing it access to our local Plex server. No ads and no stupid suggestions. It's great.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (15 replies)
[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's one reason I ditched cable years ago. Why the hell should I pay Comcast for the "privilege" of watching commercials?

Fun fact, Mythbusters episodes have a longer international edit length because America has substantially longer commercial breaks.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There is a certain unfortunate irony in the realization that one of the easiest ways to avoid this kind of thing is to buy a commercial digital signage panel intended for advertising instead of a consumer TV.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 24 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I revived the old LCD my grandparents were throwing out because it had good specs and no built in ads. Tossed in a new capacitor and it was good to go, otherwise I would just not own a TV.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] fishbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 2 months ago

Jokes on them, my TV can't connect to the internet anymore because of the the bloat added by Roku in automatic updates.

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Pro Tip: Connect your TV to your Wi-Fi so the TV doesn’t bother you constantly, and shut off access outside your network at the router level.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Ummm why even connect it at all...let the dumb thing stay offline

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›