I hope we’re not paying more for a player that does less…
You are and will be, as the cost of hardware in “smart” devices (and the reason that non-smart TV’s no longer exist) are subsidized with on-device advertising and massive data collection/reselling.
Yeah, I haven’t seen any of that either, probably because OLED burn in and limited brightness lifespan would make them basically unserviceable as static or even slideshow displays.
I’m not sure we’re there yet, but we’re certainly in the “nag banners on a frequent basis” realm on TVs. Not technically unusable, but practically unusable.
Fair, but I don’t think we should want to pay a premium for a dumb TV in fear of a hypothetical future. Perhaps worthwhile if it ever happens, but until then buying a subsidized smart TV and keeping it dumb seems fully better to me.
Disagree. You have to vote with your wallet. It’s not like the manufactures aren’t going to continue down the road they’re on. The only thing that will stop them is losing sales because of this crap.
You’d pay more money for a something you can do free right now, just in case a hypothetical product in the future does that?
Just thinking, I bet capitalism is ready and willing to provide if there are a lot of likeminded. I expect the current TV manufacturers would make smart TVs internet-only if a dumb TV company succeeded, then undercut that company with slightly cheaper dumb TVs of their own, Amazon style. That’s a win-win for them: they get to charge more for what we have for free currently, and demand more advertisement money since the audience of the cheaper smart TV is now captive. Their profit margin would still be higher than the dumb TV company because they’re already making them, too.
I don’t see a version of events where existing manufacturers lose if this happens. This feels like a road to hell paved with good intentions.
Edit: to be clear I’m very much on your side with “fuck the tv makers and fuck advertising as a whole”. I just truly fail to see how this could be anything but free market research for the existing manufacturers and an acceleration of the enshittification (hey, an accurate use!). I’m quite open to alternative theories.
You are and will be, as the cost of hardware in “smart” devices (and the reason that non-smart TV’s no longer exist) are subsidized with on-device advertising and massive data collection/reselling.
Yeah. Part of me wonders how much of a premium that making a TV dumb would be and if there is a large enough market that would buy into it.
we need an OpenWRT but for TVs
They already exist. You just have to look for “signage displays” or “commercial TV’s”, they come with all the smart crap stripped out.
Sadly they don’t make OLED signage I don’t think.
Yeah, I haven’t seen any of that either, probably because OLED burn in and limited brightness lifespan would make them basically unserviceable as static or even slideshow displays.
Why not purchase one subsidized by ads then just not connect it to the internet? Seems like a win-win
…because there’s no guarantee it will work without internet.
Can you provide an example of one that only works online? I have never heard of that.
I’m not sure we’re there yet, but we’re certainly in the “nag banners on a frequent basis” realm on TVs. Not technically unusable, but practically unusable.
Fair, but I don’t think we should want to pay a premium for a dumb TV in fear of a hypothetical future. Perhaps worthwhile if it ever happens, but until then buying a subsidized smart TV and keeping it dumb seems fully better to me.
Disagree. You have to vote with your wallet. It’s not like the manufactures aren’t going to continue down the road they’re on. The only thing that will stop them is losing sales because of this crap.
You’d pay more money for a something you can do free right now, just in case a hypothetical product in the future does that?
Just thinking, I bet capitalism is ready and willing to provide if there are a lot of likeminded. I expect the current TV manufacturers would make smart TVs internet-only if a dumb TV company succeeded, then undercut that company with slightly cheaper dumb TVs of their own, Amazon style. That’s a win-win for them: they get to charge more for what we have for free currently, and demand more advertisement money since the audience of the cheaper smart TV is now captive. Their profit margin would still be higher than the dumb TV company because they’re already making them, too.
I don’t see a version of events where existing manufacturers lose if this happens. This feels like a road to hell paved with good intentions.
Edit: to be clear I’m very much on your side with “fuck the tv makers and fuck advertising as a whole”. I just truly fail to see how this could be anything but free market research for the existing manufacturers and an acceleration of the enshittification (hey, an accurate use!). I’m quite open to alternative theories.