“This is getting ridiculous and I’m about to just toss the whole thing and move back to Google,” one Redditor said of the “full-volume” ads for Alexa+ on their Echo Show.
Oh sweet summer child, Google is NOT going to be any better at this. That will just be changing one corporate evil for another.
This week Amazon starting pushing ads to customers paying extra for ad-free Prime Video.
Corporations are now so powerful they don’t have to abide by reasonable norms, contracts, or laws any longer. Any fines are just a cost of doing business and are a small fraction of the profits they generate.
What are customers going to do anyway? Go to other businesses that are doing the exact same things on different days?
People should give up streaming subscriptions. How long would it take to learn how to get movies another way, from a friend who is already doing it.
People dont even own their media anymore and it can be removed at any time. And they are paying for that. Lols.
I learned how to sail in 5 mins from a friend the other day. It’s stupidly easy.
This is clicking buttons on your device. How did people install Instagram and use that without a degree?
I think people are just afraid of it.
The shittiest apps come pre-installed.
Its for families mostly. I dont want my small children coming up to me all the time asking for a different show downloaded that they heard about from school, and Erica’s parents actually HAVE Disney+ and says anyone who cmdoesnt must be a loser omg etc etc.
I taught my brother how to do it years ago, and he got his shit virused so fast. I’m not sure if hes colossally stupid or just plain unlucky.
There are extremely idiot-proof solutions like Stremio.
Just get Real Debrid with Stremio/Kodi.
Real Debrid + Kodi + Bingie theme = Everything available on torrents, instantly streamable in a netflix-like interface.
I think you are severely underestimating how computer illiterate most people are. Many people I know struggle to use their Iphones. Not long ago a friend asked me to help him turn on subtitles on a streaming service on his smart TV.
We’ll kick piracy into high gear.
Then they’ll make any ISPs suspecting people of piracy to be forcibly shut off.
The real question is what will we do then?
After your internet is shut, you’ll be forced to buy Google Prison Internet, where you’re surveiled 24/7 and you’re only allowed to download ads.
What are customers going to do anyway?
Convince themselves that it’s necessary.
People regret buying skunks after being sprayed by skunks.
I’m now reading Helen Philips’ Hum and it feels so disturbing that the dystopian world depicted in the book is so real. Like all of those things actually exist already, we just don’t think about them too often.
Anyone know a good TV on the market now? I don’t need ultra resolution. I want it unsmart. I need it to switch between HDMI inputs.
I’m also in the market for one. Can’t give you a recommendation from experience, but from what I read some smart TVs can be booted up and operated in “dumb” mode, which I think would be a good compromise - you might wanna look into that, because dedicated dumb TVs seem to be next to non-existent.
You’ll pay through the nose, but look at digital signage panels. They are bristling with I/O, configurable to the nth degree, wonderfully over-engineered and utterly free from bloat.
I need one with ultra resolution but also unsmart
B&O 😊 awesome Picture and awesome Sound.
Smartness is only achieved by placing an Apple TV into it.And price is way too high.
My dad has one.
I have an old LG and have set on my router to keep it offline
I only use it with ISP TV box, Nintendo Switch and Apple TV
For a TV, just don’t connect it to a network.
This doesn’t work for the Amazon Echo Show though, since internet connectivity is required for its core function.
I know, that’s what I do. It’s just so bloat ridden it’s 5 clicks with a shitty remote to switch inputs. I want a tv with no UI, just a power button, volume, channel, and input. Maybe a menu for color settings. The menus on mine are built to push me to one app or another. Every time I turn it on I have to navigate pop ups and prompts trying to get me to connect it and spend money on one app or another. I just want to go to HDMI 1.
Morons buying moronic ‘smart’ devices, unable to understand that they’re the product, not the consumer and they have sold away the rights to their eyes and ears with their purchases.
My house contains no smart devices that can harvest data from me (my mum does use a samsung smart TV from 2016) and all devices have everything disabled and other things installed to block data collection and tracking… I can’t stop 100% of it, but what little trickle they do get is basically worthless.
My eyes and ears are not for sale, nor is my privacy.
If there is a trickle, you do not know what you’re doing.
This whole comment has a, “I am very badass” vibe to it.
You’re probably sending more data to the cloud than most because of the hubris.
Did you see the research about how they were able to use the vibrations from your laser mouse to accurately determine what was being said out loud? Or how they can map rooms and detect motion with wifi. Enforable and painfully punished laws must be written not consuming one brand is not enough.
I did, but that’s not something that can easily be used in the wild… As for plans and layouts… those plans are located with local planning depts anyway. Proof of concept and a practical use for them are often very different… But yes… criminal charges need apply, not civil ones… and as I’m in the UK, perhaps they could bring terrorism charges against them too… they like doing that to people not actually committing acts of terror these days.
Don’t understand your downvotes, but probably owners of such bugs :-)
People will go to great lengths to excuse and justify their own idiocy, rather than suffer the simple acceptance they they could have been wrong… and one of these idiots suggested it was me who had ‘hubris’ :)
Wow, you are soo cool and unique to realize that the consumer is not the customer, noone has ever figured out that before!
No one asked about the status of smart home devices in your home.
Wow you are so cool and unique to comment on an opinion.
No one asked your opinion on people’s opinions.
At least their comment wasn’t a waste of time and now I’m wasting more time.
“Advertising is a small part of the experience”.
Well great Amazon. Nobody is asking for this ‘experience’.
I bought the thing. I should control want it shows at all times. The reason I can’t trust the company to futz with that is why I don’t have one.
Today buying doesn’t mean owning anymore.
What you mean you dont watch the superbowl for the commercial advertisements that take up approximately 80% of the time of the 6 hour game?
Haha. Are people even supprised? I mean come on.
The best thing you can do, is just DIY your own display with a microcontroller and have some fun in building it. Maybe run Linux on it and voila.
While we still have that option… I’d bet money that the second when most people start deciding to DIY their own home tech, they’ll lobby these techs as unsafe and dangerous and potentially ban their use outright, or require special licenses and degrees.
Cool, I have a degree and multiple technology certifications. Happy to help people with tech that pulls them out of oligarchs fiefdoms.
they’ll lobby these techs as unsafe and dangerous and potentially ban their use outright, or require special licenses and degrees.
They have a strong foundation in the DRM built into HDMI. I suspect this is exactly the real reason it is there.
F*K the HDMI forum. Those people are the cause I can not run 4k 120Hz TV on HTPC using AMD video kernel drivers on Linux. Because these drivers are open-source and the HDMI folks do not want this support in the open source drivers… FK them hard.
Whatever accelerates us getting off our asses and seizing the means of production quicker, I’m all for it. Take the TVs, I fucking dare ya
The evolutionarily stable state is a small percentage more ads than people will tolerate. That’s just maths.
LOL I knew that would happen the day they announced it.
Fucking ads, even on Netflix and at gas stations now. So offensive
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I am so happy that I can charge my car on my private ad free 6,4 kw power plug. 🔌
Installing spyware and wire taps in my home was never appealing to me.
I still have the first Google Home speaker I got for free via Spotify subscription years ago, and it’s as far as I went, wouldn’t have put money on this
AND not even being paid for doing so. But paying for instead. that’s the most bizarre part of it.
it doesn’t take much critical thinking to conclude that smart tvs are bullshit, but apparently too much for most people
Even worse than not-really-understanding-any-of-it is the wilful ignorance shown by some. “I have nothing to hide” is the epitome of obedient worker-ant stupidity.
“ok. tell me your account and routing numbers then”
What are you going to do, send them money? That information isn’t private, people have to give it up all the time to receive money…
That’s from the ancient banking system designed in the 1940s that is still lurching around. The protection on a check isn’t cryptographic - it relies on the issuing bank to confirm the authenticity by examining heuristics on the paper check like paper type, ink and font used, check number, issuing address and the person’s signature. It used to be that you would deposit a check at your bank and then it would be mailed to the issuing bank to be cleared for transfer. You wouldn’t just deposit it and get your money instantly, it would take up to 10 days.
Honestly it is bewildering to me that they haven’t changed the system to issue cryptographically secure deposit-only numbers and unique withdrawal numbers that at least verify the authenticity of the check itself.
ok. tell me your account and routing numbers
7826391786239 and 121000248
Ha! Try that with a german boomer. It’s one of the most well guarded secrets to them.
In the case of smart tv’s it’s obvious why it works. It’s way cheaper to buy a smart tv vs a dumb tv now, and It’s all companies make for consumer side, which only leaves business grade TV’s/advertisement boards which cost more. Even if this isn’t the case though, with how streaming oriented most people are, the general public won’t buy a dumb tv because they would still need to buy some sort of device to allow them to access their stuff. It’s just convenient to have it in the same device rather than buy a tv then spend another $25+ on a device that can allow access to streaming, when one device can do it all.
I upgraded to a “decent” Smart TV for my den (my previous one was an early stage Phillips smart TV that the store was basically deprecated on), and it converted 3 devices I had for my dumb tv, into that one device. It’s just convenient.
I personally think that people should be focusing more on not buying slop-ware, and working on implementing legislation of what companies are allowed to do to consumer purchased products before trying to revert back to dumb tv’s and spending 3x as much. The future is going to happen regardless, and people are going to take the easy way out, the easier way is going to be preventing the annoyances from being allowed in the first place.
you do you. enjoy your convenience. for my part, i will continue to spend $0.00 for the privilege of being the product.
all of these brands can take their smart devices and go fuck themselves with it. “convenient” GTFO
I’d far rather have a dumb TV/monitor and a cheap, easily upgradable smart device connected to it, but I’m on Lemmy so that shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Why would you buy that. Ten years ago I had an Amazon phone and it would fill my home screen with ads. I guess if you hadn’t experienced that scenario but otherwise why would you pay for that. Besides the ads fuck Amazon why give them any money. Go to Newegg, Walmart anywhere else
People regret buying …
They will continue to support …
The stupid part is how incredibly obvious this outcome was yet a bunch of clueless morons bought them anyway.
People seem to never learn. Same behavior for decades now from these companies but people are shocked. :)
But it’s so cheap.
Yeah and you get what you pay for
The low cost of these devices doesn’t help, and the constant “sales” they have throughout the year.
Yeah, ppl say ‘if it’s free, you’re the product.’ and that sentiment feels like it applies here.
Even if you pay for it, you are the product. Fuck me
