I got this popup ad on my TV **while watching a DVD**

_number8_@lemmy.world to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 1810 points –

we live in hell

I don't even understand the pitch? you have the disc playing, in your hands, your ownership, no buffering, no subscription required. and they're saying....hey do you want a worse experience?

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The SMART thing to do is to buy a DUMB TV. Pay a little more and get a real TV- you know. A display, with speakers and HDMI inputs. Nothing else.

Sometimes you have to be a bit more pragmatic. I'm not aware of any TV with HDR, Dolby Vision, OLED, etc. that isn't smart and reasonably priced. Your best bet is to buy a smart TV and block Internet access.

Another thing you can do is visit the selfhosted subs and they can help you out with other things like pihole for blocking ads and intrusive network activity on your home network.

Yep, most of them won’t complain if you just never connect them to Wi-Fi during setup.

There's a pretty good chance they'll get around it- if they aren't already.

Samsung TV? You have a Samsung phone? There's an easy way to jump the air gap.

Neighbor has a TV connected to the Internet? Send data to that TV and pretend you're not connected to anything so the user doesn't catch on.

Pretty sure that's straight up against the law. IANAL tho.

That's exactly how air tags work currently.

No it’s not, AirTags are just Bluetooth beacons. When an iPhone or other apple device picks them up, the location data is uploaded to Apple’s servers and then sent to whoever owns the AirTag. There’s no two-way communication and the owner of the AirTag doesn’t get any personal info from the devices picking it up.

I’d like to see where in the EULA it states your TV and Internet connection are used for hauling your neighbor’s data.

I have never had any smart TV complain (yet) that I have never once connected wifi. I am guessing there would be lawsuits, that a physical device requiring internet and requiring you to connect it just to function, would get sued in a class action of some kind. I use other connection systems via HDMI to transcode media, and even people who still want TV do not need to connect the TV itself to wifi, since it should all come over through HDMI ideally (or DP or whatever cables it may be.)

You're going to love this free tv then. It's free, and people has began receiving this tv since the last 3 months or so. In exchange for receiving this free tv, you'll have to make some sacrifice:

  • The tv must be connected to internet at all times within 5 days of receiving it. You aren't allowed to disconnect it (except due to brief internet outages)
  • There is a second screen on the bottom with camera that display ads. You aren't allowed to obscure the second screen to hide ads.
  • No modification allowed. You can't disconnect the second screen.
  • You aren't allowed to block ads, even with pihole.

Breaking the ToS means your credit card would get charged $1000. Very fun TV.

This may not be a popular opinion, but I personally see no issue with this if the terms of service and use are made clear and transparent before you order the device. Would I personally recommend or use the product? Hell no, but people having an informed choice, and choosing to accept these terms is perfectly fine imo.

I agree with you. Instead of spending money to buy a smart tv and still getting ads and your data collected, I can see the appeal of paying $0 to get a smart tv riddled with ads and data collection. At least you're not paying any money for the device. I just wish the opposite is also possible where you can buy a smart tv with zero ads and data collection.

It does all those things because you explicitly agree to it before getting the TV. Not the same as paying outright for a TV that somehow needs a constant connection.

That all looks absolutely horrific, but clearly they have some customers somehow?

This is what's up. Buy a small Intel NUC, a USB-C combo Blueray & DVD player, and watch any service / play any content without the ridiculousness.

Spectres are reasonable TVs. Screen tech hasn't improved drastically for the last few years, and streaming quality hasn't had any major facelifts outside the frameworks we know and love -- don't let anyone fool you otherwise. Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc., all stream comparably to one another.

Scepters are horrendous pieces of shit.

Mine has worked fine for the past 4 years. What's wrong with them?

Not guarenteed for every single one to break but...yeah. they are known to break for no reason. hell when i was the electronics guy at walmart they came back broken right out of the box waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more then any other brand.

That is, until, walmart put out their onn trash.

Scepters are horrendous pieces of shit.

YMMV of course, but I've owned two Spectres. Rock solid, no problems. Decade later, they're still going strong. /shrug

Why the F does it require a captcha to go to an Amazon page? I have no idea what you are trying to show, because I'm not doing that.

Sounds like a "you" problem, like you have a VPN connected.

Nope, vanilla Firefox, no firewall no VPN or other fancy stuff.