It’s going to be really difficult to not get a smart tv pretty soon. You can, of course not hook it up to the internet. But pretty much all of the current TVs (particularly the good ones with nice displays) are going to be “Smart”. One reason for the recent huge price drops on TVs is the ability to subsidize the price by selling viewing data. It’s the new normal in the CE world.
Yeah the only thing that can stop this trend at this point is regulation unfortunately. Unless you make it a rule that TV manufacturers can’t do this putting them all on a level playing field the ones that do will always be ahead on price.
Regulation should intervene when smart tvs come with non-obvious downsides like data collection. Consumers don't get informed and have no possibility of making an informed choice here.
People know about data collection. They don't care.
The first thing we need to do to have productive conversations about privacy with non-technical people is to stop pretending they are ignorant or unable to understand trade-offs. People know that their online activity is tracked. They know that their Alexa devices record their conversations. All of this has been on the news enough times that you'd need to be living in a cave to be unaware of it.
People know this, and they have chosen to purchase these devices anyway. Maybe it's not because they are stupid and need the state to protect them -- maybe they are capable of evaluating trade-offs and their choices ought not to be second-guessed by people who think they know better.
I agree that people know about data collection and don't care to some extent, but I'd argue that they don't understand the consequences and the extent of this.
If they'd be presented a bill of what they're being overcharged through better targeting, ads, etc., the same way activity trackers show how many steps a user takes, things might change.
What I'd disagree is that people choose to purchase the device anyway, a non-tech-savy user will hardly get presented a non-smart device, wouldn't even know to search for this.
I think regulation should at least let you turn off features, e.g. it should be possible to use Airplay and turn off the app store the tv uses.
The article has convinced me to do exactly that and finally get a pfsense router to make the pihole more effective. I'll (try to) only allow each device to run the services I really want it to run. I doubt my partner, siblings, parents, etc. would be able to do that though, this needs a simple pfsense/pihole combo that runs well out of the box or regulation to protect consumers.
> The first thing we need to do to have productive conversations about privacy with non-technical people is to stop pretending they are ignorant or unable to understand trade-offs.
And then those same people complain about folks who won't vaccinate their kids, saying they're being selfish.
Without realizing they're doing exactly the same thing.
They are ignorant. They do not understand the trade-offs.
Umm. I’m not saying force TVs to stop being smart. I’m saying that you can level the playing field by saying that TV manufacturers aren’t allowed to collect user information or display ads. That’s the race to the bottom where users lose.
> One reason for the recent huge price drops on TVs is the ability to subsidize the price by selling viewing data. It’s the new normal in the CE world.
That's good though! If you are one of the people who wants a dumb TV, congratulations! You get to benefit from lower TV prices, subsidized by all the other people who are buying smart TVs for the smart features. Just don't connect your new TV to your network, don't try to use the smart features, and pretend it's a dumb TV. It works fine.
Can you share what “dashboard display” you’re buying snd what’s the quality like compared to an actual TV? I just want a high quality screen ~55-65” to use with an AppleTV. I’m considering an LG oled cx because I don’t want android and will not use any of its features other than sound and display. I wish there was an oled display only for this use-case :(
