Hacker News

Big pivotal moment is probably the DMCA and the DRM it's enabled, it's really eroded the concept of ownership in both software and hardware (via firmware), to the point where we've completely lost all control over the devices we buy.

These days devices do what we ask when it benefits their real owners, and refuse to do what we ask of them when it doesn't.

It wasn't an overnight thing, but the temperature in the pot has been increasing for well over a two decades and it's getting more than a bit sweaty.

It's not like Doctorow, the EFF, and a bunch of others didn't warn us. They told us this would happen. Like exactly this.

If you don't have laws, or don't enforce them, people will do whatever they want.

I can remember when this simple point was obvious to almost everyone.

It’s not degeneracy, it’s their ultimate expression. A few more steps and they will snatch your wallet and give you the middle finger.

Lawmakers should have outlawed EULAs the moment they first showed up in software. The idea that someone could sell you a product which is completely broken until you sign away all your rights on a contract you don't get to see before the purchase is the most anti-consumer thing ever invented. Nothing worked like that before software came along.

The fact that it's now infecting other non-software consumer products is a reason why congress should kill this with fire. Companies are putting screens onto products specifically so they can force an EULA on customers.

If you do it, you have to be more subtle about it. See Apple.

Sony and Microsoft fought to own the living room in console wars

Companies are amoral. If killing people boosted their share price they would issue every employee a machine gun in a heartbeat. The only reason this doesn't happen is it's illegal.

Marketing executives thinking “out of the box” is how. Ethics cannot contain them inside. They have breached the perimeter and now trample everyone for MRR.

I'm not sure how anyone didn't see this coming.

Literally every business is working towards a solution where consumers own nothing and they own everything. Games, music, movies. They want to sell you subscriptions to use shit like your car or your fridge. They want to double dip on that by making you not only pay for the ability to use the stuff you bought, but also so that they can sell everything you do on it to advertisers. This is even especially true with all the shit people feed LLMs daily for work or personal purposes.

This is the end state of an unregulated capitalist market without consumer protections.

How is it insane. Owning distribution channels has been valuable since the beginning of commerce. It's no different than a newspaper company saying they own the paper so they have the power to print ads in it.

It's not entirely the fault of the industry. Consumer preferences are part of this equation too.

https://www.streamtvinsider.com/advertising/roku-vizio-lean-...

If consumers are unwilling to shell out for a TV priced high enough that the manufacturer doesn't need to do things like this to earn a (decent) profit, then what we've got is what you get.

You could certainly argue that the industry should've held the line, but that ignores human nature. One "innovative" manufacturer was always going to break ranks then the rest would follow, especially since the typical consumer appears (judging by the lack of non smart TV's for sale at consumer prices) to prefer lower prices to lack of tracking features. I think people very much like being able to buy a 65" tv for USD399.

If you want to mandate the sales of TVs that don't track, get a law passed. I suspect it'd be deeply unpopular once the resulting price rises were known.

>Apparently Sony OLED screens are LG "glass" but without the spyware.

Without independent verification from someone like GN, I wouldn't trust "we installed rootkits" Sony not to be spying too.

Sony TVs are handled by TCL now, so time will tell how Sony-branded models act (up) in the future.

https://www.tomsguide.com/tvs/sony-just-handed-its-tv-busine...

What’s stopping you from disconnecting it from wifi mow?

As others have said, cut off access and/or factory reset it. My LG has never been granted net access, firmware upgrades through USB drives, and streaming through Onn 4K box(w/ a 3rd party launcher) and Apple TV. No surprise ads, apps, or anything.

Sony uses Google TV. Doesn't inspire trust as far as spying and data collection goes.

Disconnect it from the internet, buy a streaming device, and use the streaming device. It’s really not that complicated.

If you want a bit complicated, you can probably unscrew the back panel and remove the wifi card.

Buy a cast/apple tv anyway and then reset the LG screen to factory. Is that an option?

Why not reset it

It feels like there must be multiple completely different implementations of LG OLED TVs. I would not say that my LG has a "main screen" of any kind. When I turn mine on it shows the last input that had been used or, if that thing is off, it shows the bouncy egg and "No Signal". If I press the button on the remote that says RECENTS and has a picture of a house on it, which I guess is the "main screen", it maintains the bouncy egg but shows a ribbon of apps on the bottom. Those are my installed apps: Hulu, Prime, Peacock, YouTube, Netflix, Apple TV, and Disney+ happen to be today's recents. Where is this "main screen" where unbidden appvertisements arise?

I think this is the important question. I've been searching, but all I found were deprecated and incomplete projects. If anyone knows some actual current development, even incomplete ones, let us know.

Huh. I never considered this. Hacking TVs with firmware would be a great project for LLMs to fuzz.

What you want to look for is called "Commercial Signage Display". These are basically large "TV" monitors that are sold to businesses like sports bars.

On Amazon, you can find a few here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/industrial/18746933011... (which are mostly Samsung).

I used to go on here about Sceptre TVs, because they are relatively cheap and dumb as a brick. Was just shopping for one because of this LG news (wanted to replace my old one from 2014), and while Sceptre still lists them on their website, they tell me to go to Amazon or Walmart to buy one.

Amazon and Walmart say they are out of stock, with no expected date.

My conclusion is that Sceptre, the last holdout in the dumb TV industry, has quit in favor of focusing on monitors/displays for computers. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to ever replace my TV!

In Germany I like the "OK" brand from Saturn/Mediamarkt. They're Ok.

The dumb models are very cheap and the picture is faithful due to lack of framerate-doubler and other picture-enhancement shenanigans.

Don’t you worry, mid/high end TVs cost thousands of bucks and have all the same spyware

panelook.com

YouTube can cast to TVs on a local subnet and is looking for them. This isn't new. What's new is that Android now warns when an app starts poking around on your LAN.

ACR is a documented feature so they can't deny that it exists. https://lgads.tv/technology/ https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t... (note that this is from a year ago)

Not defending LG's stance, but hasn't LG always said they do this as part of ACR (automatic content recognition) for the purposes of targeted advertising?

LG says it's opt in, and I think the devil is really in the details about what the consent screen says, but the only way I think it would be a "crazy accusation" is if LG was doing this without consent.

Youtube allows you to AB test with up to 3 titles and thumbnails.

It's almost certainly A/B test. Essentially everyone does it.

You can even sometimes see when a list of videos on YT first loads and a given video has one title, and it suddenly switches to another without you reloading the page.

YouTube encourages A/B testing of both titles and thumbnails, but it could be either.

I just had a crazy idea: Are there any ways we (consumers) could leverage the (bad) DMCA "anti-circumvention" laws?

Ex:

1. The noise happening in my house is copyrighted.

2. I protected my copyright by blocking the TV from transmitting it to known manufacturer domains.

3. By switching to obfuscated domains or alternate transmission paths, the manufacturer started circumventing my copyright controls.

... I suppose the boring answer will be that the literally-unreadable stack of Terms Of Service has some "everything we ever do is permitted by you" clause.