the time in which the TV is on but users aren’t doing anything is valuable
Ads are making everything worse. Yes and ads are disturbing the doing nothing. Doing nothing is very valuable to me. It’s the time when I have some time for myself.
the time in which the TV is on but users aren’t doing anything is valuable
Are they going to pay for the increased power to do so?
Ads have funded a lot of content in the past. I don’t mean just in the Internet era, but in the TV era and the radio era and the newspaper era. We’re talking centuries.
Unless you’re gonna get people to pay for your content, which can create difficulties, attaching it to ads can be a way to pay for that content.
Now, all that being said, that isn’t to say that one needs to want to choose ads or needs to want to choose ads in all contexts or can want unlimited ads. I’d generally rather pay for something up front. Let’s say that it takes $10 to produce a piece of content. For ads to make sense, it has to make the average user ultimately spend at least $10 more on some advertised product than they otherwise would have, or it wouldn’t make sense for the advertiser to give the content creator $10. I’d just as soon spend $10 on the content directly instead and not watch the ads. Ultimately, the average user has to pay at least as much under an ad regime as if they just paid for the content up front, and doesn’t have to deal with the overhead of me staring at ads.
But for that to work, the content provider has to be able to actually get people to pay for whatever content they’re putting out. If it gets pirated, or people disproportionately weight the cost of that up-front payment, or people are worried about the security of their transaction, or what-have-you, then the content provider is gonna fall back to being paid in ads.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with advertising in general. I kinda hate that too. What I have a problem with is super invasive advertising where it collects a monumental amount of personal information, maliciously and often without your consent, to target ads for specific products.
And anyone who says they’re not doing it, I don’t believe them anymore.
Roku is capturing everything that’s on your TV and processing it as personal data.
Don’t connect your TV to the internet, just don’t.
Cars have cell radios now and transfer data about you using those.
I would imagine that as long as it can generate enough of a return for it to make financial sense, manufacturers of other devices might start doing so at some point.
Imagine if your tv only worked if it can phone home so you couldnt just rip the chip off or mangle the antena.
Did you reply to the correct comment? I’m not sure what that has to do with mine?
Edit: oh, you mean we might not have a choice about it connecting soon? I hadn’t thought about that because that is not a current reality. But, that is a terrifyingly possible future
There was a really interesting interview on The Verge with the CEO of Telly. Basically, TVs are so cheap now because they make all of their profit selling your data. His pitch is “why pay for a TV and then also have your data mined. They should at least give you the TV for free.”
It’s frustrating because even if we buy a “premium” devices like an LG C3 or one of the nice Samsung TVs, they’re still going to spy on us. (PiHole FTW).
He’s right, but I don’t like the framing of TV companies are going to spy on you anyway so we’re the best option since you get a free TV. I would like the option to not be spied on. In fact I’m choosing that by not having a TV to begin with.
That’s one of the reasons i’ve stayed with a TV from 2009 for so long. It was just before they started doing all that Internet TV bullshit, so no spying possible.
You can still do that and get a TV (for now), you just have to not connect it to the internet. Mine has never seen Ethernet cable nor my wifi password and gives me zero problems. I don’t even use the TV interface since I have an HDMI switcher that auto switches to the most recently powered device.
isnt that why if you value privacy (or customization) youre supposed to not plug the tv to the internet and use your prefered streaming setup connected over hdmi. its ultimately a self inflicted problem of people using the built in stuff rather than take the time and setup an actual setup (that would stay the same between tvs as long as said device doesnt die on you)
then convenience is sold, especially if its free, then your data is going to be sold with it.
That only works if you’re using something Linux + Jellyfin, though. Any set top box like a Fire Stick or Chromecast will sell your data too.
which is why ones better off with a modified Nvidia Shield or Apple TV to minimize data collection, if you arent using an HTPC for a streaming server. Not a binary system, its a game of whose doing it the least, and the TV companies have a huge incentive to collect money off the integrated stuff vs companies whose cost is moreso on the hardware, and make money off their intended subscription services (Apple One for Apple TV, Nvidia Geforce Now for gaming on the Shield)
Time to start jailbreaking TVs.
Already a thing for Roku/Android TVs.
Don’t buy Roku TVs?
Home entertainment is such a closed system that all these companies are just beta testing shitty ideas for each other. Eventually they all do the same thing as long as any backlash was neither too destructive to revenue nor sustained. See endless streaming services price hikes, account sharing lockdowns, or the fact that you just can’t buy dumb TVs anymore.
That’s why you buy the less shitty ones to reinforce the backlash
This particular idea probbaly has technical limitations.
A device can only monitor and analyze and modify what a user is viewing if it’s being used as a pass-through device in a daisy chain of devices.
As long as there is any device out there that can take multiple video signals from different inputs, let the user choose which they want to use, they can just not daisy-chain them, have them connected in parallel to different inputs. And even if one could try to get manufacturers colluding on creating a world where daisy-chaining is the only option, they have no incentive to do so on this point – in doing this, they’re trying to steal eyeball time from each other.
Now, that being said, I suppose that device manufacturers may not care, if 95% of users are going to just daisy-chain their devices. If it’s only a few privacy nuts out there who are constantly keeping on top of the latest shennanigans and figuring out how to avoid them, if the Roku manual says “daisy chain” and most users just follow the pictures there…shrugs
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HTPC or Google TV. With Google TV you can at least ADB the shit away
Should be able to with Roku since they are also Android based. I’ve found a bunch of things to side load or modify any TV running on Android or based on Android… Which only sucks because I was looking for that kind of stuff for my shit-ass Samsung TV which isn’t Android based 😩
Roku is not android based, and doesn’t have an accessible ADB interface or similar
Aren’t .APKs only usable with Android systems? I’ve sideloaded .apks to my old Roku stick for things that weren’t on the official app manager.
As far as I’m aware they can only be used on Android. I did a search for APK on Roku and I all found were some articles erroneously calling custom channels APKs. Roku does let you side load custom channels in developer mode, but you can remove software like you can on an android box, so you’re always stuck with Roku’s ad riddled home page and whatever injects ads into HDMI
Time to find interests that don’t depend on a company taking advantage of my consumption habits.
Roku’s New HDMI Tech C̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ Will Show Ads When You Pause Your Game
FTFY
I’m just expecting ads with any “start” button press.
Press start ADS!
Change equipment by pressing start to access the menu. ADS!
Press start to conti ADS!!!
note: this is just a patent
patents usually don’t mean shit, sony (?iirc) has a patent for an ad system that requires users to say the name of the brand to continue, but we’re not seeing it around yet eh?If they do,that’s it
The biggest thing I hate about any HDMI overlay is they inevitably screw with the picture quality of the underlying image.
Could it not be turned off when it’s not needed (I.E. The game is unpaused.)
And what specifically do you mean by overlay?
Monitors and TVs have been able to overlay some interface elements over the HDMI input since forever. I have never heard of an overlay degrading quality but maybe there are some poor implementations.
if !playing { play_ad() }
