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?
It’s called “Post-Purchase Monetization”, and it’s why your 65” OLED tv is so cheap. They capture and sell your viewing data - but only if you hook it up to an internet connection. So don’t hook them up to an internet connection.
and it’s why your 65” OLED tv is so cheap.
If this were true, the few remaining “dumb TVs” (e.g. from Spectre Sceptre) wouldn’t be cost-competitive, but they are.
This abusive shit isn’t subsidizing the cost of the TV; it’s just padding the manufacturer’s profits.
Edit: the company isn’t named after the villainous org from James Bond
Spectre TVs are cheap because they compete at a lower tier and are priced to attract buyers to what is essentially an unknown brand.
The question is how long that will help. Just recently read about the first TVs popping up that try to connect to any available open WiFi to phone home, regardless of your settings. Soon our TVs will need tinfoil hats 😱
mine doesn’t do this fortunately, but once in a while when you turn it on when it isn’t connected to wifi, it will bring you to a wifi selection screen instead of your last input, and the list is sorted so that unsecured APs are at the top, and the OK button highlight (which you’d normally use to activate the feed from your last source when you turn it on) just so happens to activate the top unsecured AP, to which it will immediately connect and launch into the “internet connected” onboarding process.
this almost happened to me once when I first got it… so I set up an AP on my router that has all traffic completely blocked, and connected the TV to that. it periodically tells me to call support about internet problems, but all the nags and promos and “sign in” begs went away otherwise, so I guess it’s just happy to hear from my router.
Stop spreading unsubstantiated bullshit. Cite a source or GTFO. There’s no way this would be legal since you have to agree to an EULA for them to spy on you. It’s the first thing you see when you start enabling WiFi on a smart TV.
Just because some idiot on the internet said its possible doesn’t count as evidence that companies are doing it. They’re smarter than that and they know they’ll get sued if they do it. They wouldn’t take that risk when 99% of smart TV owners agree to the EULA and enable the smart features themselves.
I have been searching for the source, but can’t find it anymore between all the WiFi troubleshooting sites. It wasn’t really brand stuff they mentioned but cheapo TV clones they checked for security risks, similar to those Trojan horse Android TV boxes.
But wouldn’t be the first time that the industry takes inspiration from something like that and either implements it silently to get the juicy telemetry (yes, using that to enable smart features would be dumb) or sells it as a ‘feature’.
I couldn’t find it again, sorry. But it wasn’t any real brand that did this (yet), but cheap noname TV clones (similar to those Trojan horse android boxes). Not something you’d trust anyway, but didn’t expect them trying to bridge the gap to get telemetry.
