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Oh please don't misunderstand my post. I'm in total agreement that this bullshit can't go unchallenged and that posting about it is necessary and good. It's just that, like public comment town halls, all the complaining in the world does not affect change.
Instead, I meant to imply that more needs to be done and in a way that people who have already paid can use to fight against them.
Like encouraging all Roku TV owners (and eventually all Smart TV owners) to contact their local, state and federal representatives to demand they enact consumer protection laws against post purchase forced software changes to functionality of the product (aside from security patches) or forced acceptance of 'terms of service' that essentially take away your right to your preferred method of recourse.
I mean, the idea that we buy something for the features and capabilities it gives us just to have it changed at the whim of a corporate moneymaking scheme is insane. Even moreso when policy changes mean you accept something you don't want to or lose what you paid for (i.e. Roku's forced arbitration acceptance that would otherwise brick the TV).
It's fine to vent frustrations but in the long run, jailbreaking and looking to buy something different doesn't resolve the root problem. Greed overcoming consumer protection in the name of shareholder interest (most of which are corporate C level douches).
Sorry if I wasn't clear with my opinion but my posts usually are already too long before they even start. lol
Never connect your smart TV to the internet. Just don't do it. Get a third party device or ideally use an old PC with an appropriate HTPC Linux distro or something.
Wait, why? Is the TV spying on me any more than my phone, every app I use, my desktop OS, every website I visit, all of my smart home devices, my car, my bank, traffic cameras, and my bottom left molar?
Can't I just slap a PiHole on my home network and pretend I've done something about it?
TVs have a history of listening and collecting a lot more data than a smart device.
With a TV device like an android or Linux box, you can prevent that as well as ad-injection because you can install whatever you want on the device and it's not as locked down as a TV. You can even disable or physically remove recording devices if you'd like, and many smart boxes do not even come with them.
Also, a pihole does not guarantee you filtered out everything or prevented the TV from interfering with your experience.
A TV can also change its policy on the fly and suddenly start injecting ads. Many TVs do this to add additional income after your purchase.
Over my dead body
You know what people tend to forget?
Shareholders = Consumers of the product too
Marketing departments that come up with these assinine ideas are staffed with consumers of the product too.
As long as enough people are making bank from this stupidity, it will not stop.
The only right answer is not to give them your money. Hard to do that when they all do it and after purchase protests are kind of pointless since they already got paid. So, how to actually impact their bottom line? That's the only language they listen to.
How's that strategy working out for you? For us?
Unfortunately "don't give them money" doesn't work. Bc commerce is global due to internet. There will always be uninformed buyers in every product space. And always buyers who don't care.
My solution, posts like this. We should be informing others of these practices and discussing ways to bypass, repair, or disable blocks and unintended behavior on the products and services we purchase.
purchase protests are kind of pointless since they already got paid
But when the people who paid them can't move their product because it has the Roku name on it, it all of a sudden becomes very pointful.
To some extent yes. However, the problem doesn't go away. It just becomes cyclical.
Not many people out there are likely to say that they haven't spent money on a number of brands hopping from one to the other until the enshittifcation catches up to the brand.
When we run out of brands, then what? Amazon Firestick, Google Chromecast, Roku, Android TV, WebTV OS ...
I just think on top of not buying their products in the future, it would make sense to also fight the fight that will prevent others from doing the same thing now and in the future. Eliminate the need to turn away from a brand because they are allowed to screw us on the value of our purchase trying to milk us for more profit. TV prices might go up a few hundred or more (and if you want a new feature, it might cost you) but you know that what it does or doesn't do when you get, it will still do it later on it's it's lifespan. Of course, this will be all moot once hardware becomes a subscription model. The lack of personal ownership of things in the name of perpetual profits is a thing coming ...
Does nobody in this thread know about HDCP? This wouldn't fly at all.
HDCP signal is decoded by the TV before being displayed on the screen. The TV has complete control over what is shown to you.
Don't get it wrong: HDCP was not made to protect user interests, but specifically for the publisher and display device OEMs who subscribe to it.
They'd be doing this change on their TVs, in principle this would be no different from displaying the settings menu that comes up when you press the * button, no tampering of the HDMI signal required. HDMI inputs are their own "channels" in the UI so it's pretty trivial to put ads on the screen periodically when one such channel is open.
Can you elaborate? I thought hdcp was mostly about preventing piracy type of things, what does it do for this situation?
It (in theory) prevents signal tampering of any kind, which would include injecting advertisements into the stream.