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Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

Thinking about it too much makes me furious. We have supercomputers in our pockets and TVs but it all spies on us and nobody gives a shit because everything is cheap. It's a Faustian deal that sucks! Nobody would actually choose this yet here we are.

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I feel this same fury. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

It's not that nobody gives a shit, it's that the alternatives have been taken away

I have the alternative of just plugging in an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, whatever Google or Amazon makes, any computer with a digital video out port, tons of IPTV boxes that stream tons of pirated channels.

All I have to do is not put my wifi password into the TV.

For now. We are probably going to start seeing manufacturers, shipping, TVs and other devices with LTE chips built into them, so they can go around our Wi-Fi to get the sweet sweet data. At that point, my biggest fear is that all the people (myself included) who thought we were being clever by depriving the TV of the Wi-Fi password are going to be sad that we didn't instead throw our money behind a manufacturer building ethical products.

If that isn’t the reality today, how could an alternative “ethical” manufacturer even compete?

There are existing brands that sell dumb TVs. Sceptre is one that I'm fond of. They compete on they aren't the cheapest usually but quite reasonable. Most people want to buy cheaper "smart" TVs though and deprive them off the Wi-Fi password, which makes it harder for dumb TV manufacturers to stay in business and get cheaper through economies of scale, which further compound the problem.

I’d really like to go with a dumb set, but their panels seem way behind.

Comparing their flagship 86” set: U860CV-UMRD (claimed) to Hisense U8 (measured, native/worst case):

3000:1 vs. 9449:1 contrast

300cd/m2 vs. 910+ brightness

60hz vs 144hz.

The hisense is significantly cheaper, so I think the comparison is fair.

Oddly, sceptre reports percent of NTSC gamut and not a modern color space. The percentage doesn’t imply poor color representation, but its a strange choice.

This is what Amazon sidewalk is really for too.

We already see signs that it might head this way. Numerous IoT junk (Facebook portal and Google Home Minis come to mind), will ignore DHCP-provided DNS servers and use their own (usually 1.1.1.1/8.8.8.8 respectively) if they don't get successful connections to their mothership. My devices are old enough that they don't try DoH, but I'd be shocked if most of these haven't moved to that by now.

So, does the FCC allow LTE jammers in any form or power level, nowadays? Because that's a compelling reason to burn the entire connectivity industry down.

Edit: probably easier to open it up and simply disconnect the LTE antenna.

Some TVs put up a periodic nag screen if you do this. Others have a blinking led behind the IR sensor.

Samsungs silently mesh network with other Samsung devices.

> Samsungs silently mesh network with other Samsung devices.

What? Supporting link?

There’s a disclaimer about this in the manual of another samsung appliance we own. I imagine the tv manuals mention it too.

So no then..

My LG does none of this.

It's also never been connected to the internet, and my router also has a static IP reservation to give the TV an IP that is not on my subnet in case someone in my house ever tries to connect it to the internet.

They haven't you're just not buying them. Almost all manufacturers are also selling "digital signage displays".

Millions of people actually chose this over their other options.

Consumers regularly vote with their wallets against their best interests.

> Millions of people actually chose this over their other options.

What other options would those be? What non-"smart" OLED TVs exist on the market right now?

You missed the point. You don’t need OLED. You’re just following the crowd for the next shiny dumb new thing yet drives enshittification.

You don't actually need most things. Any yet here we all are, all on the same website. Not because anybody needed to be, just because we wanted.

The decisions were made months or years ago, when there were non-smart options. Cheaper surveillance TVs won out.

I agree but the reason they were cheaper was hidden. If spying were an opt-in popup that says "spy on me" nobody would choose the spying. It won through sleight of hand.

The fact that you don’t agree with the choice doesn’t mean that consumers didn’t make one.

If they were unfit for purpose, they would have been returned.

Most people don’t care about being spied on.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-o...

When iOS let users opt out of tracking 96% opted out. If people don't care about being spied on then why do so many opt out?

it's cute that you think people read popups. /s

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