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I found this article nearly impossible to read, it’s just so angry. It’s accusatory at every moment, it maligns essentially all of the worlds largest technology
by nixgeek 5y ago
I found this article nearly impossible to read, it’s just so angry. It’s accusatory at every moment, it maligns essentially all of the worlds largest technology companies in an introduction before even getting to Vizio (the point of the article, per the title). I often feel this extreme writing style hurts more than it helps. Very difficult to convince people your cause is just with this tack?
- pessimizer 5y agoYou can't decide whether something is credible by looking for a tone of even-handedness. It's a misleading signal that rules out the possibility that all of the facts are on one side or another, and people who are trying to fool you will always adopt a tone of even-handedness.
- benreesman 5y agoI like hyperbolic feisty writing sometimes just as I like really spicy food sometimes. Some people never like really spicy food, but that doesn’t mean restaurants shouldn’t serve it.
- CamperBob2 5y agoI do, too, but Cory Doctorow usually brings more craft to the table than what's evident here. This reads more like an angsty high-school dropout's application to join an anarchist commune. He's not wrong, but then, neither was Stallman.
- anuvrat1 5y agoI wouldn't consider this “extreme writing style”, author define what this so-called “ad-economy” then they get into, every one tries to show that they aren't part of it, but they are. Then there is the main point of the article, which is Vizio doesn't care about being clean and undercutting competition. A good chuck of Vizio's customer knows what they are buying, unlike companies like Samsung; charging premium price, “caring” about their customers but still involving in the same practices as Vizio. And the author gets the point across, so this is a decent article.
- chasil 5y agoI don't own a "smart TV." If I did, I would have two options to secure it. I could keep it disconnected from my home network, except perhaps occasionally to update the firmware. Otherwise, all network content would come from a device in which I could place some level of trust. Alternately, I could put it behind a Gargoyle router set to push all content through Tor. That would render some network content inaccessible, and Vizio itself might block Tor exit nodes. Each of these choices introduces inconvenience and reduces function, but right now I would not trust my activity to Vizio, after seeing this financial reporting.
- anuvrat1 5y agoIsn't that "little inconvenience" the money you are saving going with Vizio? You get an excellent display for the price, use it as a display only and for updates thumb drive is your best friend.
- emodendroket 5y agoWell, not really, since the better TVs are also smart TVs.
- 0x0nyandesu 5y agoKinda have no choice these days. Have a brand new house and want a 65 inch 4k OLED panel? Welp you're getting a smart tv. I found the Sony Bravia line to be the "cleanest" firmware. It's Android so you can do quite a lot to hack it to your advantage.
- 0x0nyandesu 5y agoDown vote all you want but when your wife asks you why you don't have a TV in your brand new house you're gonna cave like a deck of cards in a hurricane.
- chasil 5y ago
- bshipp 5y agoIt's like having a big family dinner with your crazy uncle Bob who spends the entire meal working themselves up into an angry froth spouting a vast assortment of conspiracy theories. It's possible that there is some nugget of value in that mess but your eyes have long since rolled so hard that you're worried you've sprained an optic nerve.
- smoldesu 5y agoIs it really a conspiracy theory to suggest that Microsoft is spying on you in Edge? Or that Apple puts profits before security? I'm not really seeing the nutjob factor here, but maybe that's because I'm already intimated with the field...
- noirbot 5y agoMaybe the better analogy is your friend who somehow has to make everything about how either capitalism or communism is behind everything wrong about the world. It doesn't really matter if they're right or wrong, as some point you just want to talk about how much you like the new episode of Succession or whatever and not have them link everything back into their pet universal theory of the world. It's often better and more effective to have an article about one single novel thing than to bang a drum about how every single thing in the world is just the same pattern again and again.
- tata71 5y agoWeird comparison to people complaining about very specific entities exhibiting very specific behaviors and performing very specific actions. Those are general economic concepts that aren't even broadly agreed upon.
- noirbot 5y agoIt's weird? TFA is literally "look at how capitalism has enabled surveillance capitalism as evidenced by all of these companies." It's "complaining about very specific entities exhibiting very specific behaviors and performing very specific action" and how all of those behaviors and actions are just the result of capitalism, and that Vizio is another data point in how everything is connected to general economic concepts? Sometimes everything is connected, and sometimes your boss is just a shitty boss, or a company made an unethical decision.
- caymanjim 5y agoIt's a pissy rant that goes way off topic, but none of it is wrong.
- crocodiletears 5y agoYou can't convince people anymore. All that's left is resignation, anger, and used screens from the oughts.
- timmytokyo 5y agoCory Doctorow writes polemics. Not everyone likes polemics.
- oopsyDoodl 5y agoWe should drop “tech” from tech company altogether at this point. No reason other companies, like Walmart, can’t be blamed for the same things. Even a little cottage industry player for Apple or Intel is just grifting on large scale grift of agency and planet destruction; one shared reality makes it kind of hard to hide the whole economy is thoughtless dedication to death cult behavior. So much pointless taxonomy is generated about our society. Free speech is great but like with infinitely big little numbers, it can just meander forever, as our political system is showing us.
- asbnk 5y agoPeople should get off their computers and read some European literature again. This is not "angry", just a colorful style. What is frightening is the anger (i.e., emotion) policing that people programmed by big tech engage in.
- mdoms 5y agoCory Doctorow is a self-identified privacy activist. Not proponent, not advocate, activist. If you don't think there's room for activism in this space then his writing is not for you. But he has had a wildly successful career and has done more for privacy and digital freedom than most of us will come close to. I find it a bit rich that a random commenter tells Cory Doctorow that his writing style "hurts more than it helps" considering his success thus far. If you want something a bit less spicy there's no end of press releases from huge tech companies for you to read.
- dessant 5y ago> I find it a bit rich that a random commenter tells Cory Doctorow that his writing style "hurts more than it helps" A Microsoft employee, under an article that states unpleasant facts in the first few paragraphs about their employer. It is natural for the author of the article to be accusatory, when there is a documented trail of illegal actions and repeated cases of customer exploitation from all these companies.
- WaxProlix 5y agohah, he is a microsoft employee, and one who posts MS press releases to HN apparently. Not the hugest fan of submission snooping but that adds some context, doesn't it?
- drumhead 5y agoI dont get that impression at all. It was a clear easy to read article, setting the context doesnt or explaining the general environment doesnt reduce the credibility of whats said in the article at.. I couldnt see anything that sounds conspiritorial or unhinged. Now if I was cynical, Id say that would be the sort of thing a person representing the surveillance marketing industry would say to smear the author. Cory Doctorow is a well known advocate for privacy on the internet, so he may have made a lot of enemies in that industry, who may try to attack his credibility whenever and wherever they can. I found the article to be quite illuminating, especially about vizio and the lack of permission to monitor your activities.
- throw10920 5y agoWelcome to Cory Doctorow. Enjoy your stay... or don't. I don't find his style of writing persuasive, either, to the point where I believe that it isn't meant to be.