4 ms·

The premium for the "smart" version of TV "x" is getting lower. I just bought a Roku TV last month. For the 55" Roku TV I bought last month, it was basically $0

The premium for the "smart" version of TV "x" is getting lower. I just bought a Roku TV last month. For the 55" Roku TV I bought last month, it was basically $0. If it becomes a dumb TV in 4 years I won't be too bothered. The 2020 FooNexusCastWebFireBar will probably be better anyway.

criddell 10y ago
> The premium for the "smart" version of TV "x" is getting lower. That's great, as long as it isn't because they are making money on showing ads, replacing ads, or selling your viewing data (without proper disclosure, of course).
- Silhouette 10y ago
  It doesn't help much if they're doing it with proper disclosure, if buyers have no realistic alternative because everyone is doing it. At some point, if we value our privacy at all, real laws are going to be required to halt the race to the bottom that is already well underway.
  - criddell 10y ago
    If we value our privacy? Some of us do, some of us don't. I value my privacy, but I don't put a terribly high value on it. If Google or Apple wanted to track my TV habits with the promise of serving me better in some way, I would probably sign up for that in a heartbeat. But when my off-brand TV wants to, I would decline. That may mean some products and services aren't easily available to those that put a high value on their privacy.
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      That may mean some products and services aren't easily available to those that put a high value on their privacy. Or we could decide that some things are too high a price to pay and not allow the businesses to include mandatory surveillance technologies. Are TV makers really going to stop making TVs if they aren't allowed to spy on their customers as well? Are TV prices really going to be lower with that spying going on if everyone in the industry is doing it anyway? Regulation is what you do when competition no longer provides an acceptable level of choice in the market. What constitutes an acceptable level of choice may well depend on how important or even essential a certain type of product or service is, but in any case preventing a lack of real competition from causing this kind of customer-hostile race to the bottom is a valid use of statutory regulation IMHO.
      - criddell 10y ago
        Everything you say is true. I just think you value your privacy far more than the general public does. People seem to be willing to surrender an astonishing amount of data to get very little in return. I personally have changed from being that guy who always used cash, who responded to every privacy notice that was mailed to me, who never signed up for loyalty programs, to really not caring about it anymore. For me, I see tangible benefits and only theoretical harm.
        Silhouette 10y ago
        I certainly do value my privacy much more than the average person. I don't even have accounts on the likes of Facebook, for example. I am not even close to an average level of concern, and I fully acknowledge that. On the other hand, I am also far more technically knowledgeable about the potential implications of privacy intrusions than the average person, and unfortunately I have all too often seen what can happen to friends and colleagues who aren't as careful as me and wind up victims. The harm may only be theoretical in your experience, and I've no reason to doubt you. However, just thinking about my personal contacts over the years, I have heard of lost jobs (multiple times), credit denied for a mortgage, a gay friend living in my country whose society back home is still hostile to homosexuality being publicly outed by mistake, identity thefts (multiple) including a huge financial loss to a company I sometimes work with where someone authorised to make large payments was very carefully impersonated using a range of information gathered over a considerable period of time, leaks of potentially embarrassing healthcare records (multiple times from multiple sources), cyberstalking (really creepy remote access to unsecured in-house devices like baby monitors and cameras) and a couple of big surprises (on the scale of a marriage proposal) spoiled by careless disclosures. I'm not aware of any personal contact of mine who has been a victim of something like burglary or having their children taken as a result of a criminal discovering and exploiting their household routines, but obviously these aren't out of the question either. Now, obviously I'm not suggesting that someone spying on your TV habits is necessarily going to lead to harm on that scale (though I note in passing that if you hold a public office and watch the "wrong" TV programmes then it's not entirely inconceivable, hence laws like the Video Privacy Protection Act in the US). But the risks from excessive surveillance, including the collection and use of incomplete or inaccurate data, are not theoretical at all. If you've never known anyone suffer the kinds of problems I mentioned above then I'd guess you and your friends have been extremely lucky; it's not like this stuff happens in my social group all the time, but I'd estimate that I've heard about at least one or two serious problems a year over the past decade or so. All of this affects my opinions, naturally. However, perhaps the thing that sways me more than anything else is that I've been noticing recently how much some people are put off by privacy intrusions if they are better informed about what is really happening and the implications. I think a lot of people simply don't understand what they are allegedly consenting to or what might happen as a result, and sometimes you can't even see the results. After all, how do you know whether your insurance premium has been increased, your credit limit affected, or your job application denied, on the basis of information you never knew someone else had and never had any opportunity to check or refute? Realistically, I don't think it's possible to educate everyone sufficiently on these issues for them to protect themselves as much as they might choose to if they were fully informed, any more than you can make everyone an expert on how financial services work or the shady practices of used car dealers. This is why we delegate some amount of protection to people who do have the time and resources to become experts, and who do have a mandate to balance allowing businesses to do business against looking out for the interests of society as a whole.
touristtam 10y ago
The issue is when the onboard computer comes bundled with sypware.
- danudey 10y ago
  You mean like those Samsung TVs that scanned your network shares even if you told it not to and sent the names of all the files it saw to a server somewhere?

criddell 10y ago

> The premium for the "smart" version of TV "x" is getting lower. That's great, as long as it isn't because they are making money on showing ads, replacing ads, or selling your viewing data (without proper disclosure, of course).

Silhouette 10y ago
It doesn't help much if they're doing it with proper disclosure, if buyers have no realistic alternative because everyone is doing it. At some point, if we value our privacy at all, real laws are going to be required to halt the race to the bottom that is already well underway.
- criddell 10y ago
  If we value our privacy? Some of us do, some of us don't. I value my privacy, but I don't put a terribly high value on it. If Google or Apple wanted to track my TV habits with the promise of serving me better in some way, I would probably sign up for that in a heartbeat. But when my off-brand TV wants to, I would decline. That may mean some products and services aren't easily available to those that put a high value on their privacy.
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    That may mean some products and services aren't easily available to those that put a high value on their privacy. Or we could decide that some things are too high a price to pay and not allow the businesses to include mandatory surveillance technologies. Are TV makers really going to stop making TVs if they aren't allowed to spy on their customers as well? Are TV prices really going to be lower with that spying going on if everyone in the industry is doing it anyway? Regulation is what you do when competition no longer provides an acceptable level of choice in the market. What constitutes an acceptable level of choice may well depend on how important or even essential a certain type of product or service is, but in any case preventing a lack of real competition from causing this kind of customer-hostile race to the bottom is a valid use of statutory regulation IMHO.
    - criddell 10y ago
      Everything you say is true. I just think you value your privacy far more than the general public does. People seem to be willing to surrender an astonishing amount of data to get very little in return. I personally have changed from being that guy who always used cash, who responded to every privacy notice that was mailed to me, who never signed up for loyalty programs, to really not caring about it anymore. For me, I see tangible benefits and only theoretical harm.
      - Silhouette 10y ago
        I certainly do value my privacy much more than the average person. I don't even have accounts on the likes of Facebook, for example. I am not even close to an average level of concern, and I fully acknowledge that. On the other hand, I am also far more technically knowledgeable about the potential implications of privacy intrusions than the average person, and unfortunately I have all too often seen what can happen to friends and colleagues who aren't as careful as me and wind up victims. The harm may only be theoretical in your experience, and I've no reason to doubt you. However, just thinking about my personal contacts over the years, I have heard of lost jobs (multiple times), credit denied for a mortgage, a gay friend living in my country whose society back home is still hostile to homosexuality being publicly outed by mistake, identity thefts (multiple) including a huge financial loss to a company I sometimes work with where someone authorised to make large payments was very carefully impersonated using a range of information gathered over a considerable period of time, leaks of potentially embarrassing healthcare records (multiple times from multiple sources), cyberstalking (really creepy remote access to unsecured in-house devices like baby monitors and cameras) and a couple of big surprises (on the scale of a marriage proposal) spoiled by careless disclosures. I'm not aware of any personal contact of mine who has been a victim of something like burglary or having their children taken as a result of a criminal discovering and exploiting their household routines, but obviously these aren't out of the question either. Now, obviously I'm not suggesting that someone spying on your TV habits is necessarily going to lead to harm on that scale (though I note in passing that if you hold a public office and watch the "wrong" TV programmes then it's not entirely inconceivable, hence laws like the Video Privacy Protection Act in the US). But the risks from excessive surveillance, including the collection and use of incomplete or inaccurate data, are not theoretical at all. If you've never known anyone suffer the kinds of problems I mentioned above then I'd guess you and your friends have been extremely lucky; it's not like this stuff happens in my social group all the time, but I'd estimate that I've heard about at least one or two serious problems a year over the past decade or so. All of this affects my opinions, naturally. However, perhaps the thing that sways me more than anything else is that I've been noticing recently how much some people are put off by privacy intrusions if they are better informed about what is really happening and the implications. I think a lot of people simply don't understand what they are allegedly consenting to or what might happen as a result, and sometimes you can't even see the results. After all, how do you know whether your insurance premium has been increased, your credit limit affected, or your job application denied, on the basis of information you never knew someone else had and never had any opportunity to check or refute? Realistically, I don't think it's possible to educate everyone sufficiently on these issues for them to protect themselves as much as they might choose to if they were fully informed, any more than you can make everyone an expert on how financial services work or the shady practices of used car dealers. This is why we delegate some amount of protection to people who do have the time and resources to become experts, and who do have a mandate to balance allowing businesses to do business against looking out for the interests of society as a whole.

touristtam 10y ago

The issue is when the onboard computer comes bundled with sypware.

danudey 10y ago
You mean like those Samsung TVs that scanned your network shares even if you told it not to and sent the names of all the files it saw to a server somewhere?