4 ms·

You don't need a TV. If there are only smart TVs then simply don't purchase one. Most consumers are unwilling to take an option that they perceive as inconveni

by j_w 7mo ago

You don't need a TV. If there are only smart TVs then simply don't purchase one. Most consumers are unwilling to take an option that they perceive as inconveniencing them more than getting screwed by the company inconveniences them.

LtWorf 7mo ago
Go to a shop and try to find a non smart tv.
- kortilla 7mo ago
  “You don’t need a TV”
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
hnlmorg 7mo ago
Telling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. The reality is that companies know they can get away with crap because they all get away with crap. And because they all do it, consumers are powerless. This is why regulation isn’t a bad the thing that many HNers seem to recoil at. The real problem with regulation is when it’s defined by lobbyists rather than consumer groups. But even then, it’s really no different to the status quo where businesses are never held accountable.
- j_w 7mo ago
  If somebody "needs" a TV then they might "need" some hobbies. A disturbing proportion of my family spend more than half of their free time watching television (typically while doom scrolling tiktok). They don't "need" TVs - they need to find interests.
  - Cpoll 7mo ago
    Sure, but you're just choosing hobbies for people. TVs are just one example here. If your hobby is 3D printing, you might've gotten screwed by Autodesk's subscription changes.
    - nicoburns 7mo ago
      Yeah, and it's not just non-essentials. You could easily get screwed by your food production supply chain, or your housing provider.
    - j_w 7mo ago
      TV can be a hobby, but hobbies typically have actual engagement from the hobbyist. There are a lot of people whom watching television/movies is a real hobby, and for those people you can tell that's the case. In my experience for most people it's strictly a time wasting/filling/background noise activity. If you are spending a considerable amount of time watching television to time waste then you probably should try and find more fulfilling activities. This is not prescriptive of what those would be.
      - hnlmorg 7mo ago
        When I was in my 20s I used to hold this belief as well. And as I’ve gotten older I’ve realised those opinions weren’t because TV viewers were wasting their lives, it was because there was so much I wanted to do with my time that I was scared of wasting my life. I was actually getting angry because I couldn’t pack everything I wanted to do in a day. Needless to say, I now focus on my own free time rather than thinking about how others should spend theirs. Also, now I’m in my 40s, I treasure the couple of hours I spend a week watching TV with my kids. We play games, sports and such like too. But sometimes it’s nice to cuddle on the sofa and share an experience in comfort.
  - acheron 7mo ago
    Evergreen https://theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469/ https://theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesn...
- zahlman 7mo ago
  > Telling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. From personal experience, it really really is barely even an inconvenience. Especially in a world where YouTube exists and is accessible for free from a desktop computer. There's barely been anything good on TV for decades, and the older stuff probably only seemed good because of the difficulty of publishing any competition.
  - hnlmorg 7mo ago
    It really depends on the individual. I barely watch any TV and have been like this for the 30+ years that I’ve been old enough to own a display. For a while, I did go fully in with media centres. Even running XBMC on an original Xbox. But I honestly just don’t really care for video content all that much regardless of how it’s delivered. But I also know a hell of a lot of people who still massively prefer watching content the traditional way. As in, not just TV shows, but on a TV too. And I have no more right to tell them how to consume video content as they do to tell me how I should consume the stuff I want to read.
    - rbanffy 7mo ago
      > And I have no more right to tell them how to consume video content as they do to tell me how I should consume the stuff I want to read. I sometimes suggest they’d do themselves a favor if they stopped watching Fox News and reality TV, that life is much better without that.
      - hnlmorg 7mo ago
        But that’s not the same thing as saying “people shouldn’t own a TV and instead find themselves a hobby”. Which is the original comment that people objected to.
  - listenallyall 7mo ago
    Lol, your position is, don't watch tv, just watch YouTube. That's not really a radical shift. Fine if it works for you, but TV has plenty of things going for it... big screens, watch from 10 ft away on a couch, watch with other people, regular schedule (i.e. Jeopardy on the same time every day), live sports, local news, shows with generally high production values. But probably most importantly, passivity - yes that is a feature.
- rbanffy 7mo ago
  > Telling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. The TV I have has never had an antenna cable plugged, or an internet connection. It’s, from day one, been a large HDMI monitor to an Apple TV, a Nintendo Switch and a C64 Maxi with some other devices plugged in from time to time. It IS possible to ignore the TV’s software most of the time (mine, luckily, isn’t intrusive at all) and use it as a conduit for a much cheaper and easily replaced (or hacked) device. I remember how surprised the engineers at [manufacturer redacted] were when I told them they had everything needed to turn their TVs into thin clients and meeting room monitors right into the Linux firmware just a compile away. I’d totally love a 35” X terminal in 2008 with Ethernet and a couple USB ports.
  - hnlmorg 7mo ago
    Yes, we’ve all done that. I mentioned earlier about how I used XBMC on an original Xbox. But we aren’t normal people. Normal people wouldn’t even know how to set up a media centre. And the Nintendo Switch famously has next to no video streaming platforms on it.
    - rbanffy 7mo ago
      > But we aren’t normal people It's both a blessing and a curse.
Eisenstein 7mo ago
Please make a list of things you don't need so that in case of any issues with the company or system that allows access to them you will know to just stop using them.
- j_w 7mo ago
  I've dropped many things in the past because of issues with the company/service. Amazon Prime, every single streaming service, I've been car free for over 3 years, and there are more. Are there some things I would struggle with if suddenly there were issues? Sure. I had to significantly increase my internet spend because of the (much) cheaper option going to complete shit. I require the internet for my career but unless the entire world collapses I doubt I'll run into any true blocker that would prevent me from using it for work. Most people are just afraid to change their lives substantively. I am too, but I'm also willing to do it for causes I believe in.
  - Eisenstein 7mo ago
    I think you underestimate the meaning of the word 'inconvenience'. Hot water is a convenience. My point is that your list is one list which you are making, but someone else could look at your life and make a different list. Your argument only goes so far you can extend into your own life. If you really cared about something's place in your life, you wouldn't classify it as a convenience, so you are conveniently applying your own classifications to other people's lives, which you don't have a right to do. This is why we have democratic institutions and authority -- to make these limits about what is tolerable and intolerable -- not what people's conveniences are.
    - j_w 7mo ago
      Your original reply was: > Please make a list of things you don't need so that in case of any issues with the company or system that allows access to them you will know to just stop using them. If you didn't expect me to be introspective to MYSELF then why even bother asking? Of course my list is personal. While it is personal, it also can apply to others. The reality is that most people are completely unwilling to inconvenience themselves. Go without hot water? Okay, sure. I take cold showers, they are better for your skin. I wash my clothes with cold water. The only thing I use hot water for is dishes. I think that might be a bit weird, but I think dish soap is anti bacterial so it's probably not an issue? Now you can reply to this saying: "well YOU can do that but other people will feel differently." No shit. But most of the world goes without hot water so who cares. > If you really cared about something's place in your life, you wouldn't classify it as a convenience, so you are conveniently applying your own classifications to other people's lives, which you don't have a right to do. Most people don't actually care about TV in their life - they just have never thought for a minute to consider the reality of not having one. > This is why we have democratic institutions and authority -- to make these limits about what is tolerable and intolerable -- not what people's conveniences are. Not sure how this is relevant. I'm all for consumer protection. But the most apt way to protect yourself is to vote: first for politicians, and then with your wallet.
drnick1 7mo ago
The trick is to use the TV as a monitor and not connect it to the Internet.
- j_w 7mo ago
  This is what I do with the smart TV that I was given after a relative was tired of it freezing up/apps crashing. Haven't had any issues.
- rbanffy 7mo ago
  I remember some brand was caught connecting to nearby TVs of the same brand to send telemetry to their corporate masters through the neighbour’s internet connected TV. Not sure how far they went with downloading new firmware.

by j_w 7mo ago

LtWorf 7mo ago

Go to a shop and try to find a non smart tv.

kortilla 7mo ago
“You don’t need a TV”
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]

hnlmorg 7mo ago

Telling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. The reality is that companies know they can get away with crap because they all get away with crap. And because they all do it, consumers are powerless. This is why regulation isn’t a bad the thing that many HNers seem to recoil at. The real problem with regulation is when it’s defined by lobbyists rather than consumer groups. But even then, it’s really no different to the status quo where businesses are never held accountable.

j_w 7mo ago
If somebody "needs" a TV then they might "need" some hobbies. A disturbing proportion of my family spend more than half of their free time watching television (typically while doom scrolling tiktok). They don't "need" TVs - they need to find interests.
- Cpoll 7mo ago
  Sure, but you're just choosing hobbies for people. TVs are just one example here. If your hobby is 3D printing, you might've gotten screwed by Autodesk's subscription changes.
  - nicoburns 7mo ago
    Yeah, and it's not just non-essentials. You could easily get screwed by your food production supply chain, or your housing provider.
  - j_w 7mo ago
    TV can be a hobby, but hobbies typically have actual engagement from the hobbyist. There are a lot of people whom watching television/movies is a real hobby, and for those people you can tell that's the case. In my experience for most people it's strictly a time wasting/filling/background noise activity. If you are spending a considerable amount of time watching television to time waste then you probably should try and find more fulfilling activities. This is not prescriptive of what those would be.
    - hnlmorg 7mo ago
      When I was in my 20s I used to hold this belief as well. And as I’ve gotten older I’ve realised those opinions weren’t because TV viewers were wasting their lives, it was because there was so much I wanted to do with my time that I was scared of wasting my life. I was actually getting angry because I couldn’t pack everything I wanted to do in a day. Needless to say, I now focus on my own free time rather than thinking about how others should spend theirs. Also, now I’m in my 40s, I treasure the couple of hours I spend a week watching TV with my kids. We play games, sports and such like too. But sometimes it’s nice to cuddle on the sofa and share an experience in comfort.
- acheron 7mo ago
  Evergreen https://theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469/ https://theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesn...
zahlman 7mo ago
> Telling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. From personal experience, it really really is barely even an inconvenience. Especially in a world where YouTube exists and is accessible for free from a desktop computer. There's barely been anything good on TV for decades, and the older stuff probably only seemed good because of the difficulty of publishing any competition.
- hnlmorg 7mo ago
  It really depends on the individual. I barely watch any TV and have been like this for the 30+ years that I’ve been old enough to own a display. For a while, I did go fully in with media centres. Even running XBMC on an original Xbox. But I honestly just don’t really care for video content all that much regardless of how it’s delivered. But I also know a hell of a lot of people who still massively prefer watching content the traditional way. As in, not just TV shows, but on a TV too. And I have no more right to tell them how to consume video content as they do to tell me how I should consume the stuff I want to read.
  - rbanffy 7mo ago
    > And I have no more right to tell them how to consume video content as they do to tell me how I should consume the stuff I want to read. I sometimes suggest they’d do themselves a favor if they stopped watching Fox News and reality TV, that life is much better without that.
    - hnlmorg 7mo ago
      But that’s not the same thing as saying “people shouldn’t own a TV and instead find themselves a hobby”. Which is the original comment that people objected to.
- listenallyall 7mo ago
  Lol, your position is, don't watch tv, just watch YouTube. That's not really a radical shift. Fine if it works for you, but TV has plenty of things going for it... big screens, watch from 10 ft away on a couch, watch with other people, regular schedule (i.e. Jeopardy on the same time every day), live sports, local news, shows with generally high production values. But probably most importantly, passivity - yes that is a feature.
rbanffy 7mo ago
> Telling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. The TV I have has never had an antenna cable plugged, or an internet connection. It’s, from day one, been a large HDMI monitor to an Apple TV, a Nintendo Switch and a C64 Maxi with some other devices plugged in from time to time. It IS possible to ignore the TV’s software most of the time (mine, luckily, isn’t intrusive at all) and use it as a conduit for a much cheaper and easily replaced (or hacked) device. I remember how surprised the engineers at [manufacturer redacted] were when I told them they had everything needed to turn their TVs into thin clients and meeting room monitors right into the Linux firmware just a compile away. I’d totally love a 35” X terminal in 2008 with Ethernet and a couple USB ports.
- hnlmorg 7mo ago
  Yes, we’ve all done that. I mentioned earlier about how I used XBMC on an original Xbox. But we aren’t normal people. Normal people wouldn’t even know how to set up a media centre. And the Nintendo Switch famously has next to no video streaming platforms on it.
  - rbanffy 7mo ago
    > But we aren’t normal people It's both a blessing and a curse.

Eisenstein 7mo ago

Please make a list of things you don't need so that in case of any issues with the company or system that allows access to them you will know to just stop using them.

j_w 7mo ago
I've dropped many things in the past because of issues with the company/service. Amazon Prime, every single streaming service, I've been car free for over 3 years, and there are more. Are there some things I would struggle with if suddenly there were issues? Sure. I had to significantly increase my internet spend because of the (much) cheaper option going to complete shit. I require the internet for my career but unless the entire world collapses I doubt I'll run into any true blocker that would prevent me from using it for work. Most people are just afraid to change their lives substantively. I am too, but I'm also willing to do it for causes I believe in.
- Eisenstein 7mo ago
  I think you underestimate the meaning of the word 'inconvenience'. Hot water is a convenience. My point is that your list is one list which you are making, but someone else could look at your life and make a different list. Your argument only goes so far you can extend into your own life. If you really cared about something's place in your life, you wouldn't classify it as a convenience, so you are conveniently applying your own classifications to other people's lives, which you don't have a right to do. This is why we have democratic institutions and authority -- to make these limits about what is tolerable and intolerable -- not what people's conveniences are.
  - j_w 7mo ago
    Your original reply was: > Please make a list of things you don't need so that in case of any issues with the company or system that allows access to them you will know to just stop using them. If you didn't expect me to be introspective to MYSELF then why even bother asking? Of course my list is personal. While it is personal, it also can apply to others. The reality is that most people are completely unwilling to inconvenience themselves. Go without hot water? Okay, sure. I take cold showers, they are better for your skin. I wash my clothes with cold water. The only thing I use hot water for is dishes. I think that might be a bit weird, but I think dish soap is anti bacterial so it's probably not an issue? Now you can reply to this saying: "well YOU can do that but other people will feel differently." No shit. But most of the world goes without hot water so who cares. > If you really cared about something's place in your life, you wouldn't classify it as a convenience, so you are conveniently applying your own classifications to other people's lives, which you don't have a right to do. Most people don't actually care about TV in their life - they just have never thought for a minute to consider the reality of not having one. > This is why we have democratic institutions and authority -- to make these limits about what is tolerable and intolerable -- not what people's conveniences are. Not sure how this is relevant. I'm all for consumer protection. But the most apt way to protect yourself is to vote: first for politicians, and then with your wallet.

drnick1 7mo ago

The trick is to use the TV as a monitor and not connect it to the Internet.

j_w 7mo ago
This is what I do with the smart TV that I was given after a relative was tired of it freezing up/apps crashing. Haven't had any issues.
rbanffy 7mo ago
I remember some brand was caught connecting to nearby TVs of the same brand to send telemetry to their corporate masters through the neighbour’s internet connected TV. Not sure how far they went with downloading new firmware.