The part about being able to e-mail an obscure support address with your device's ID to have ads turned off on your device suggests that they're trying to see how far they can push this without damaging their brand. Users who complain enough get solutions, everyone else has to deal with it.
My son has found about 25 different ways to access YouTube across our Android, Android TV, Apple and Roku devices. I have found ways in almost all of them to "nicely" block youtube for him (while keeping it for me or keeping the device functional).
Roku is the only one that just doesn't give a crap. Screw Roku.
For example, start an episode of Mittens and Pants for four year old, at end of episode, instead of playing next episode, it switched to Married With Children.
Kinda surprised you consider a completely banal sitcom to be problematic for children. I mean I'd expect the kids to think it's boring and not get any of the subplot... But it's completely family safe?
Be happy they're only showing you ads and not implanting malware into your network or turning it into a residential proxy.
[0] https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-servic...
[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/problem-with-a-product-or-...
They're a customer already if they're opening the home screen and they probably already mounted it on their wall so fuck them. Show them ads. Also turn on the microphone in the background (what my Hisense tv does).
I presume the same mind thought this up.
TVs are now a commodity that competes almost solely on price. You can walk into most big box stores in North America and buy a TV that will display at a higher resolution than your eyes are physically capable of processing at the distance of the average living room, have a screen bigger than the average person's wingspan, and it'll cost well under $500. If you don't keep the price low you're going to lose sales. Since you're not making cash on the front-end, you make it by selling the ad space.
Everyone who could want a TV more-or-less has one. You either cut quality so they have to buy 'em more often, or you monetize what's already there. They're probably doing both, but this is an example of the latter.
For me, it worth it to spend marginally more to not have to deal with _any_ of that, but I get the appeal.
And at last, the market has finally caught up with me :)
The insanity needs to stop.
How amazing would that be!?
Actually, don't buy TVs at all. Buy books.
Ignoring, of course, that no implementation has ever been observed in the wild, for purposes malicious or otherwise.
It'd be trivial for them to introduce some sort of network connectivity check that would need to be completed before audiovisual signals come out of the device.
I'm pretty sure they already have that in the pipeline. Why wouldn't they?
Plenty of places in the world with bad connectivity or people who can't afford an ISP.
It’s called an idiot box for a reason.
My life has improved dramatically without one.
Displays last a long time. Eventually the computer will become outdated especially if companies can just remotely load viruses like this onto them. I just connect my computer to my TV and that's the only input I ever use. Full control. The "smart" part of "smart" TVs is idiotic.
That's all that's happening. Had zero customers done that, they wouldn't have had to go nuclear.