I am seriously considering creating a dropship company focused exclusively on buying and selling electronic components that are sold for parts and people can assemble them at home, Ikea-style.
I would start with selling 50" and 65" inch "dumb" TVs. Just the panel, a nice enclosure and a board with an IR receiver, TV tuner and HDMI outputs. BYO top box and Soundbar. I wonder how fast it would take to get 10000 orders.
The Framework folks hit an unexpected snag with a similar idea: turns out the US tax on a laptop assembled in Taiwan is much lower than on a box of parts made in Taiwan that you can assemble into a laptop yourself. (Why? Because.) Thus the strange not-really-DIY “DIY edition”.
I’ll keep repeating this but I used to be a TPM for “advance analytics” for a major media agency and we used this data in our reporting for ad reach effectiveness.
From a previous comment of mine:
> … my Insignia TV (best buy store brand) with fire tv built in is basically unusable.
Echoing a previous comment I made too, about “smart tvs” and the “streaming sticks”:
Hey, have you ever thought of why even the $149 Black Friday loss-leader no-name-brand TVs all have Amazon Fire, Roku, or are now "Smart" in some way? Certainly isn't because they need to incentivise you to connect it to the internet so it acts as a Nielsen-esq measurement device of all media you view on the screen via digital fingerprints that exist in all commercial media and advertisements. [1][2]
Aargghh, a prompt similar to this is going to make me an extremist that'll wage j**d on IT companies!
Google Photos wants you to turn on backups so you blow through your 15GB quota and buy storage from them, so once in a while when I open the app it screams "Back up is not turned on! You risk losing your photos!" (ok maybe not that hysterically).
Then the "Back up photos" slider is active, and I just have to hit "Continue". I'd have to slide it to off, and the button changes to "Continue without backup" and I have to hit it.
It's freaking disgusting that software companies now change your settings (ok, thankfully it still asks for your confirmation) and nag you about it every few weeks.
BTW Google, I have a Google Pixel 1 phone that has lifetime unlimited photos backup, and I intend on abusing that functionality by using automated transfers between my daily phone -> my NAS -> Pixel 1 -> your servers until you fuck me over and delete my account.
Why the fuck would anyone buy a "smart monitor" that is hooked up to a computer? Are they too incompetent to directly watch Netflix/Prime/etc on the computer? What is LG's target audience here?
I'm guessing snwy_me got the monitor from someone else and forgot to factory reset it and disable WiFi.
I bought something like this from Samsung. Honestly, was an oversight that I only started regretting when I learned that the controls to change the input source suck in a major way (not possible to switch source via a provided remote, source-switching buttons are very inconveniently placed at the bottom of the monitor and sometimes enter full settings instead of the source-switch menu). Lesson learned the hard way. And yeah, I keep the wifi disabled on that thing, except when occasionally checking for updates in the hopes that they fixed that shit via a software update.
It’s the only way to get a good hidpi panel in the 5K space without breaking the bank. They also have DEEP integration with the Samsung ecosystem like dex integration.
LG has been getting into this market; their target market appears to be folks that want to have a miniature tv at their desk in small (studio) apartments to watch Netflix, etc on without fiddling with a pc. Which makes sense: in Korea and a lot of other places now, 200sqft apartments are becoming more common and the affordable option without splitting with others.
I have a similar monitor from LG. I pair it with a MacBook, and there are times when the MacBook isn’t connected, but I still want to watch Netflix. Or even when the MacBook is connected, if I’m not at my desk it’s easier to control with the remote. It actually sees more use as a standalone streaming device than as a monitor.
I think smart monitors are convenient multi-purpose displays and make a lot of sense for home use. Not so much for office use like in the source tweet.
Yeah, I'm trying to see what the problem is here. Seems like just a reason to gripe. What difference does any of this makes if the monitor itself is only fed a video signal (i.e. don't connect its wifi). Does the monitor fail to operate without its WiFi connection or something?
And if you gaze for long into an LG™ liquid-crystal display monitor, the LG™ liquid-crystal display monitor asks your permission to gaze also into you.
For what it’s worth, this is a Smart TV (ie, a streaming box) that happens to also be monitor sized. I have no idea why anyone would buy one of these for primary use as a computer monitor, and the marketing and messaging is clear and up-front that these are streaming devices running an Internet connected OS.
Why streaming devices need to be so ad-infested is a different interesting topic, but IMO this “my monitor has an EULA” thing is just engagement bait.
Agree - this twitterbait is purposely omitting relevant details that this is NOT a traditional external display in any sense of the word. I mean the category of displays on LG's website is labelled "Smart Monitors with webOS" - which should be a clue right there.
That Samsung/LG/etc. are sulfurous pits of spyware is a completely different and well understood problem (but coincidentally too pedestrian to garner the desired rage induced upvotes).
If this is anything like an LG smart TV — and, as the UI is identical to my C4, I assume it is — none of the agreements are required to use the device as a monitor.
On LG TVs, at least, you can also completely disable the WebOS UI via a command sent through an onboard RS-232 interface, at which point the TV displays no overlays at all.
I think the solution to these kinds of issues is a coordinated campaign in small claims courts across the world.
If people decided to take the time to simultaneously take this issue before a judge who will give them a default judgment when a company like LG no-shows it'll start to hurt them and the publicity from this will force change.
I wonder what would happen if Amazon introduced a boycott feature. It could be a list of active boycotts next to the buy button on a product page. Customers can choose to join one of the boycotts instead of clicking the buy button, and then get redirected to a list of alternatives.
It won't ever happen obviously, but I wonder if it would solve these types of problems? Consumers collectively boycotting something is the most powerful way to fight things like this, but I can't think of a successful example of that in recent times. Even "viral" boycotts on social media platforms are likely to get limited reach due to algorithm fuckery. Or is it that nobody but us tech nerds actually cares about stuff like this, and even a blatant in-your-face boycott feature on Amazon wouldn't make a difference?
> I wonder what would happen if Amazon introduced a boycott feature. It could be a list of active boycotts next to the buy button on a product page
A feature that simultaneously discourages sales, encourages retailers to pull products from the platform, and heavily incentivizes abuse from competitors who would benefit from convincing customers to boycott their competitors products? For some reason I don’t imagine Amazon product managers are going to like this idea.
Boycotts are wishful thinking in the modern era of online shopping. The Venn diagram of people who would actively boycott a product like this and the people who would seek it out on Amazon has no overlap. These products are targeted at people who do purchasing for their office or who click the buy button without taking 1 minute to glance at reviews. The people who care enough to actively boycott have already read reviews of a product before they seek it out for purchase.
This would be a fantastic chrome extension because Amazon would never do this. It would be great to vote on the reasons why to boycott, allowing the most egregious reasons at the very top.
I'm on the fence regarding a "likely boycott" for Ooni pizza ovens, specifically the Karu 16 dual fuel. There are many videos about defective or improperly installed thermocouples. Ooni has some really helpful FAQ guides for fixing it on your own, but I was amazed at how many videos exist about this problem for an $800 pizza oven.
Amazon is part of the _problem_. What you're really looking for is called a "law", and it's something a government does to make people stop doing things that hurt other people. Laws are then enforced so the bad actors stop doing their harmful stuff.
Not buying alone sounds a pretty powerful boycott thing.
Unluckily, so many care less than nothing, buying whatever is the cheapest and loudest in praising itself with the biggest lies or misdirection. There is a huge and successful market for these kind of customers. Actually it overwhelms the small group of conscious costumers. So manufacturers are making less and less 'honest' products.
We updated security policy at our company to prohibit use of monitors that aren’t specifically authorized.
One of our customers detected a risk in an audit - it hadn’t occurred to anyone. Now we log display connections and customer facing folks can be terminated for violating the rules.
Related: my mac bugs the hell out of me to accept new cloud Eula junk after os upgrade ... it's constantly popping up every 5 mins or so and can interrupt shutdown. Out stubbornness I've ignored for 6months running.
My TV did this. The worst part was that it disappeared so quickly I didn't have time to get the remote and acknowledge it. There did not appear to be any way in the settings to go and handle it manually. I just had to wait and get lucky.
New video game idea: In the 21st century, with increases in computational and networking power it is now inevitable that any device with a screen attached can be reconfigured to show ads. You fulfill this inevitability by hooking up your portable advertisement control computer to every car infotainment system, smartwatch, and Adafruit 16x16 RGB LED matrix in sight. Bonus points (your salary) for stealth interstitial insertion.
Player controls a character that runs around putting ads on every screen and empty surface, gameplay is periodically interrupted by satirical EULA updates.
I don’t know why everyone here thinks it is unconscionable for a hardware vendor to block user access to content with a pop up, when this is standard practice in the entire software industry.[1][2]
I’ve had Microsoft Teams interrupt my presentation to a CEO to force me to click through some stupid dialog that a self-important developer put in there at the direction of an an even more self-absorbed manager.
“STOP TALKING NOW! You are nothing! Only our imagined legal risks matter! Click here to accept. DO THIS NOW.”
It didn’t exactly say that, but it may as well have. That was the meaning.
Nah, it can still connect through the smart TV of the neighbours.
They probably have cross-brand agreements in place to let any "offline" device access advertisement networks. Your data is a very profitable business for them.
Yeah this is something I feel like doesn't get talked about enough. I have a raspberry PI that acts as my streaming device connected to my Samsung "Smart" TV and since Samsung can't get on the WIFI it's effectively just a display terminal.
[+] [-] rglullis|1 year ago|reply
I would start with selling 50" and 65" inch "dumb" TVs. Just the panel, a nice enclosure and a board with an IR receiver, TV tuner and HDMI outputs. BYO top box and Soundbar. I wonder how fast it would take to get 10000 orders.
[+] [-] mananaysiempre|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wcfields|1 year ago|reply
From a previous comment of mine:
> … my Insignia TV (best buy store brand) with fire tv built in is basically unusable. Echoing a previous comment I made too, about “smart tvs” and the “streaming sticks”: Hey, have you ever thought of why even the $149 Black Friday loss-leader no-name-brand TVs all have Amazon Fire, Roku, or are now "Smart" in some way? Certainly isn't because they need to incentivise you to connect it to the internet so it acts as a Nielsen-esq measurement device of all media you view on the screen via digital fingerprints that exist in all commercial media and advertisements. [1][2]
[1] https://www.ispot.tv/
[2] https://www.samba.tv/
[+] [-] Y_Y|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] netsharc|1 year ago|reply
Google Photos wants you to turn on backups so you blow through your 15GB quota and buy storage from them, so once in a while when I open the app it screams "Back up is not turned on! You risk losing your photos!" (ok maybe not that hysterically).
Then the "Back up photos" slider is active, and I just have to hit "Continue". I'd have to slide it to off, and the button changes to "Continue without backup" and I have to hit it.
It's freaking disgusting that software companies now change your settings (ok, thankfully it still asks for your confirmation) and nag you about it every few weeks.
BTW Google, I have a Google Pixel 1 phone that has lifetime unlimited photos backup, and I intend on abusing that functionality by using automated transfers between my daily phone -> my NAS -> Pixel 1 -> your servers until you fuck me over and delete my account.
[+] [-] disqard|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Certhas|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Nition|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rgavuliak|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Terr_|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sxp|1 year ago|reply
Why the fuck would anyone buy a "smart monitor" that is hooked up to a computer? Are they too incompetent to directly watch Netflix/Prime/etc on the computer? What is LG's target audience here?
I'm guessing snwy_me got the monitor from someone else and forgot to factory reset it and disable WiFi.
[+] [-] bialpio|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] indrora|1 year ago|reply
It’s the only way to get a good hidpi panel in the 5K space without breaking the bank. They also have DEEP integration with the Samsung ecosystem like dex integration.
LG has been getting into this market; their target market appears to be folks that want to have a miniature tv at their desk in small (studio) apartments to watch Netflix, etc on without fiddling with a pc. Which makes sense: in Korea and a lot of other places now, 200sqft apartments are becoming more common and the affordable option without splitting with others.
[+] [-] freetime2|1 year ago|reply
I think smart monitors are convenient multi-purpose displays and make a lot of sense for home use. Not so much for office use like in the source tweet.
[+] [-] karmakaze|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] perihelions|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bri3d|1 year ago|reply
Why streaming devices need to be so ad-infested is a different interesting topic, but IMO this “my monitor has an EULA” thing is just engagement bait.
[+] [-] tealkitsune|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] atombender|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] vunderba|1 year ago|reply
That Samsung/LG/etc. are sulfurous pits of spyware is a completely different and well understood problem (but coincidentally too pedestrian to garner the desired rage induced upvotes).
[+] [-] amatecha|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] karmakaze|1 year ago|reply
I'd bet that many who are enraged by this story, have already accepted numerous such agreements in the software/sites they use.
[+] [-] HPsquared|1 year ago|reply
This seems to me like a potential security issue.
[+] [-] CoastalCoder|1 year ago|reply
When the EULA is blocking the content, the monitor isn't working as advertised. And they willingly shipped it like that.
[+] [-] jasomill|1 year ago|reply
On LG TVs, at least, you can also completely disable the WebOS UI via a command sent through an onboard RS-232 interface, at which point the TV displays no overlays at all.
[+] [-] Teever|1 year ago|reply
If people decided to take the time to simultaneously take this issue before a judge who will give them a default judgment when a company like LG no-shows it'll start to hurt them and the publicity from this will force change.
[+] [-] bogwog|1 year ago|reply
It won't ever happen obviously, but I wonder if it would solve these types of problems? Consumers collectively boycotting something is the most powerful way to fight things like this, but I can't think of a successful example of that in recent times. Even "viral" boycotts on social media platforms are likely to get limited reach due to algorithm fuckery. Or is it that nobody but us tech nerds actually cares about stuff like this, and even a blatant in-your-face boycott feature on Amazon wouldn't make a difference?
[+] [-] Aurornis|1 year ago|reply
A feature that simultaneously discourages sales, encourages retailers to pull products from the platform, and heavily incentivizes abuse from competitors who would benefit from convincing customers to boycott their competitors products? For some reason I don’t imagine Amazon product managers are going to like this idea.
Boycotts are wishful thinking in the modern era of online shopping. The Venn diagram of people who would actively boycott a product like this and the people who would seek it out on Amazon has no overlap. These products are targeted at people who do purchasing for their office or who click the buy button without taking 1 minute to glance at reviews. The people who care enough to actively boycott have already read reviews of a product before they seek it out for purchase.
[+] [-] jonnycoder|1 year ago|reply
I'm on the fence regarding a "likely boycott" for Ooni pizza ovens, specifically the Karu 16 dual fuel. There are many videos about defective or improperly installed thermocouples. Ooni has some really helpful FAQ guides for fixing it on your own, but I was amazed at how many videos exist about this problem for an $800 pizza oven.
[+] [-] fedup3|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mihaaly|1 year ago|reply
Unluckily, so many care less than nothing, buying whatever is the cheapest and loudest in praising itself with the biggest lies or misdirection. There is a huge and successful market for these kind of customers. Actually it overwhelms the small group of conscious costumers. So manufacturers are making less and less 'honest' products.
[+] [-] throw_me_uwu|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] squiffsquiff|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] morkalork|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] airstrike|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tokai|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ortusdux|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] yu3zhou4|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|1 year ago|reply
One of our customers detected a risk in an audit - it hadn’t occurred to anyone. Now we log display connections and customer facing folks can be terminated for violating the rules.
[+] [-] scrubs|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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[+] [-] Apreche|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] doright|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Buttons840|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggawatts|1 year ago|reply
I’ve had Microsoft Teams interrupt my presentation to a CEO to force me to click through some stupid dialog that a self-important developer put in there at the direction of an an even more self-absorbed manager.
“STOP TALKING NOW! You are nothing! Only our imagined legal risks matter! Click here to accept. DO THIS NOW.”
It didn’t exactly say that, but it may as well have. That was the meaning.
[1] https://how-i-experience-web-today.com/
[2] Command line tools used in unattended workflows will hang, waiting for EULA acceptance from a human who isn’t there: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5151034/psexec-gets-stuc...
[+] [-] JayGuerette|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] snvzz|1 year ago|reply
They probably have cross-brand agreements in place to let any "offline" device access advertisement networks. Your data is a very profitable business for them.
[+] [-] vunderba|1 year ago|reply