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> Competitive markets would fix this immediately...And the customers all have an incentive to choose the one that doesn't, putting any manufacturer willing to r

> Competitive markets would fix this immediately...And the customers all have an incentive to choose the one that doesn't, putting any manufacturer willing to respect the customer at a competitive advantage. No company wants that "advantage" because that would make them less money and give them much less power. If you sell a product and people are willing to pay X for it then you can make X (minus your costs), but if you can also collect and sell your customer's data you will make even more money on top of what you would have otherwise. Nobody is going to leave all of that money on the table. Exploiting your customers also gives you power over them. You can remotely disable features your customers already paid for and force them to pay you over and over and over again to get them back. You can ensure that your product is only used in ways you approve of. You can change/censor your product at any time after it's sold. You can force customers to keep paying for the rest of their lives for a product they used to be able to get with a single payment of a set amount. No company is going to give up all the extra money and power to "outcompete" their rivals. You can see that for yourself. Where are all the companies giving consumers what we want? If there's really an endless fortune to be made selling smart TVs that don't push ads or spy on users why aren't you personally working on doing just that already? It's guaranteed to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams when you drive every other TV company on Earth out of business right? Why hasn't someone done that already? Sometimes it will always be more profitable and advantageous for companies to refuse to give consumers what they want. I hope you're right someone does decide to make a massive fortune selling high quality smart TVs that don't exploit the customer, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for one.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> No company wants that "advantage" because that would make them less money and give them much less power. If your company had 3% of the market and not screwing your customers would get you 10% of the market, you're now not only making more than three times as much revenue, you have that many more units to spread your fixed costs over. That doesn't work when you have 40% of the market and not screwing your customers would get you 47% of the market, because the value of screwing your customers can easily be more than 20% but less than 300%. Which is why the screwing happens in uncompetitive markets but not competitive ones. > Exploiting your customers also gives you power over them. You can remotely disable features your customers already paid for and force them to pay you over and over and over again to get them back. You can ensure that your product is only used in ways you approve of. You can change/censor your product at any time after it's sold. You can force customers to keep paying for the rest of their lives for a product they used to be able to get with a single payment of a set amount. All of which customers hate. Notice how "smart TVs" don't do most of these things. You buy the TV once and it keeps operating indefinitely. Why don't the most popular TVs require you to rent them for a monthly fee? Why isn't the monthly fee $1000/month? Because customers would buy from a competitor instead. > If there's really an endless fortune to be made selling smart TVs that don't push ads or spy on users why aren't you personally working on doing just that already? The spyware is already optional. Plenty of popular TVs work fine if you connect your own input to the HDMI port and never connect the TV to the internet. You can't get a competitive advantage just by offering the same feature unless the incumbents stop offering that feature, which they haven't, presumably because they know it would cost them sales.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > Notice how "smart TVs" don't do most of these things. You buy the TV once and it keeps operating indefinitely. I haven't yet seen a TV company remotely brick their devices, or start demanding microtransactions for basic features but people are still paying for their TVs over and over and over again. You can't "buy the TV once" and be done, you're forced to give up your personal data and that never goes away and will be used against you. The company has a continuous revenue stream using and selling your data and it never ends. Every day you use the product you're paying. > The spyware is already optional. Plenty of popular TVs work fine if you connect your own input to the HDMI port and never connect the TV to the internet. Some TVs do allow you to keep them offline. Others will do everything they can to get online no matter what you do including actively scanning for open wifi networks and connecting to any it finds automatically. Connecting input to the HDMI port isn't enough to save US though because TVs are pushing ads over that video too. If your TV overlays ads when the volume changes no matter what you're viewing it won't matter if you're playing a game or a DVD or streaming video from another device. As non-smart TVs get harder to find and ad pushing and data collection become more aggressive I hope someone does step forward to offer a real alternative that doesn't do those things. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I do though.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > You can't "buy the TV once" and be done, you're forced to give up your personal data and that never goes away and will be used against you. How is it forcing you to do this if you never connect it to the internet? > Some TVs do allow you to keep them offline. Others will do everything they can to get online no matter what you do including actively scanning for open wifi networks and connecting to any it finds automatically. The obvious solution would be to buy the first kind, but even for the second, you can snip the antenna or use it somewhere there aren't any open Wi-Fi networks it can use. > If your TV overlays ads when the volume changes no matter what you're viewing it won't matter if you're playing a game or a DVD or streaming video from another device. How is it going to get any ads to show you without an internet connection? > As non-smart TVs get harder to find and ad pushing and data collection become more aggressive I hope someone does step forward to offer a real alternative that doesn't do those things. The device you're looking for is marketed as a "monitor" instead of a "TV" even though it's exactly the same thing.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> No company wants that "advantage" because that would make them less money and give them much less power. If your company had 3% of the market and not screwing your customers would get you 10% of the market, you're now not only making more than three times as much revenue, you have that many more units to spread your fixed costs over. That doesn't work when you have 40% of the market and not screwing your customers would get you 47% of the market, because the value of screwing your customers can easily be more than 20% but less than 300%. Which is why the screwing happens in uncompetitive markets but not competitive ones. > Exploiting your customers also gives you power over them. You can remotely disable features your customers already paid for and force them to pay you over and over and over again to get them back. You can ensure that your product is only used in ways you approve of. You can change/censor your product at any time after it's sold. You can force customers to keep paying for the rest of their lives for a product they used to be able to get with a single payment of a set amount. All of which customers hate. Notice how "smart TVs" don't do most of these things. You buy the TV once and it keeps operating indefinitely. Why don't the most popular TVs require you to rent them for a monthly fee? Why isn't the monthly fee $1000/month? Because customers would buy from a competitor instead. > If there's really an endless fortune to be made selling smart TVs that don't push ads or spy on users why aren't you personally working on doing just that already? The spyware is already optional. Plenty of popular TVs work fine if you connect your own input to the HDMI port and never connect the TV to the internet. You can't get a competitive advantage just by offering the same feature unless the incumbents stop offering that feature, which they haven't, presumably because they know it would cost them sales.

autoexec 3y ago
> Notice how "smart TVs" don't do most of these things. You buy the TV once and it keeps operating indefinitely. I haven't yet seen a TV company remotely brick their devices, or start demanding microtransactions for basic features but people are still paying for their TVs over and over and over again. You can't "buy the TV once" and be done, you're forced to give up your personal data and that never goes away and will be used against you. The company has a continuous revenue stream using and selling your data and it never ends. Every day you use the product you're paying. > The spyware is already optional. Plenty of popular TVs work fine if you connect your own input to the HDMI port and never connect the TV to the internet. Some TVs do allow you to keep them offline. Others will do everything they can to get online no matter what you do including actively scanning for open wifi networks and connecting to any it finds automatically. Connecting input to the HDMI port isn't enough to save US though because TVs are pushing ads over that video too. If your TV overlays ads when the volume changes no matter what you're viewing it won't matter if you're playing a game or a DVD or streaming video from another device. As non-smart TVs get harder to find and ad pushing and data collection become more aggressive I hope someone does step forward to offer a real alternative that doesn't do those things. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I do though.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > You can't "buy the TV once" and be done, you're forced to give up your personal data and that never goes away and will be used against you. How is it forcing you to do this if you never connect it to the internet? > Some TVs do allow you to keep them offline. Others will do everything they can to get online no matter what you do including actively scanning for open wifi networks and connecting to any it finds automatically. The obvious solution would be to buy the first kind, but even for the second, you can snip the antenna or use it somewhere there aren't any open Wi-Fi networks it can use. > If your TV overlays ads when the volume changes no matter what you're viewing it won't matter if you're playing a game or a DVD or streaming video from another device. How is it going to get any ads to show you without an internet connection? > As non-smart TVs get harder to find and ad pushing and data collection become more aggressive I hope someone does step forward to offer a real alternative that doesn't do those things. The device you're looking for is marketed as a "monitor" instead of a "TV" even though it's exactly the same thing.