1y ago

Smart TVs must showcase Australian free-to-air channels alongside streaming services under proposed legislation

www.theguardian.com

22 comments

Can I just get a cheaper option that has no software whatsoever?
- All i want for Christmas is a large dumb tv
  
  Hard to find, and unnecessary, as long as it has HDMI ports.
  I have NEVER hooked up a smart TV to the Internet, and they work just fine with my digital boxes.
  Same goes for the Blu-ray player that has Netflix, fuck that noise.
  If there's a dumb option that is cheaper, go for it. Just don't think you have to pay a premium for it, when you can just not put the TV on your network.
- I would be willing to pay more as they are subsidizing the cost with the advertising. I have seen computer monitors are coming with ‘smart’ functionality now. Don’t want that.
  
  Is it okay to start covering things with tinfoil yet?, I have herd rumors that these "smart" things are so internet access horny they will steal the negbors guest wifi.
- Removing the software wouldn't make it cheaper considering where TV manufacturers are making their money nowadays. The choice would be between a cheap smart TV and a more expensive dumb TV. This has been going on for years.
  From 2021:
  https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-advertising-inscape-data-privacy-q3-2021
  It’s been less than a year since Vizio became a publicly traded company, and one consequence of that is we know more about its business than ever before. The TV maker released its latest earnings report on Tuesday and revealed that over the last three months, its Platform Plus segment that includes advertising and viewer data had a gross profit of $57.3 million. That’s more than twice the amount of profit it made selling devices like TVs, which was $25.6 million, despite those device sales pulling in considerably more revenue.
  Then there's this taken to the extreme:
  https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/15/23721674/telly-free-tv-streaming-ilya-pozin-ads
  There’s a new type of TV coming [...], and it’s completely free if you don’t count the price of your attention — or data. Telly [...] offers up a TV that makes up for its nonexistent price tag by showing constant advertisements in a second, smaller display.
This is fair, but let's hope this doesn't make the FTA-related apps un-uninstallable
- With Google TV/Android TV almost anything can be uninstalled or at least disabled with ADB.
Meanwhile in the corporatism government called the US, broadcasters are encrypting OTA broadcasts to make it virtually impossible to view or record or skip commercials. All while using public owned airwaves.
Libreelec

22 comments