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LG is rolling out a new terms of use and privacy policy agreement. Looking pretty ugly over here with my "Smart TV". What can I do?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
It seems to be related to some advertising push from a partner named Alfonso that is gathering information cross-platform anything that appears on your screen and pushing advertising to you during playback.
Hopefully not, but that's what it looks like from early reading.
And we are back to my original objection: That is a restriction based on activism, not practicality. I can do that for myself, but not for every family member. It's not reasonable to tell someone that they won't be watching this or that show, despite being bundled in our cable, which is in turn bundled with our internet package, because I'm annoyed at privacy pop-ups. It's not reasonably to tell everybody in the house that we're cancelling all of our streaming services, which are routed through the offending hardware, because we're a Bluray-only household now, I've decided.
Both the structure of the service and the implementation are now industry standard. You can go "off the grid" with some effort and enduring some restrictions, but you can't choose to keep the same level of service and not use the mandatory cable box your cable provided installs if you still want to have access to cable channels.
I didn't even have OTA TV last time I was living alone. All I really need is a disc player, a tablet and a computer. Now I'm not living alone I don't get to be fussy on principle because I don't like having to click "opt out of cookies" every time I want to watch the news. It's already a stretch to insist on rejecting all the cookie prompts instead of accepting the intrusion for convenience.
So very happy about how high your horse is in your unabomber media setup, but that's not practical for me or in general.
Not subscribing to cable is unabomber a media setup? Not practical? We're talking about TV, not food or shelter here. Also, we're having a nice conversation. I know you're frustrated with the situation you're in, but if it requires me to be the butt of your insults to continue talking, I'm out.
This isn't activism. Its a cost/benefit analysis. As in "what are you willing to put up with to get the content you want at the time you want it?"
Besides live sports (and even then sometimes) nearly all content available from a cable TV box is obtainable (legally) from somewhere else. The cable box isn't the only place to get TV. If the cable box is providing you with a user experience that is substandard (by your own subjective measures), then you have to ask yourself is it worth the cost? You may be able to get the same content without the aspects you don't like. It may cost more money. You'll have to ask yourself if its worth it to pay that money to avoid the annoyance.
Your family members don't seem to have any problem with the user experience of your current setup. No need for them to change.
I'm not suggesting that. Through this whole conversation I thought we were just trying to solve the problem for you and your family can continue to consume the solution they're okay with.
Why would you have to cancel all your streaming services? I even said that I have a streaming household. What is preventing you from getting a lightweight (as in user experience) streaming device, such as an AppleTV or Nvidia Shield, and also setting up your household streaming accounts on that device in your house attached to the same TV? When you want to watch something without interference or popups on streaming, switch input to your device and watch away without intrusion.
If your family wants to watch through the cable box for their shows, let them. You can likely get the shows you want to watch without going through the cable box.
If you're watching Live TV news, flip over to your OTA tuner and watch the news there without your cable box/smart TV cookie messages. You may notice the video quality is MUCH better in OTA than compressed cable TV anyway.
So you DO have a level of demands on the family for your current solution. Thats fine. Family dynamics are unique to each of us. In your place one strategy I might try is bribery. As in, ask your family if they'd be willing to get a non-smart TV (with an attached streaming box of their collective choice attached) if you were to give each a sum of money ($50, $100, you'd know your family and finances better than I do). I know some younger ones would take that offer in a second to get an extra $50 to spend on Fortnite skins or Taylor Swift albums. Again, this last one is optional to try and get rid of the Smart TV. If your own streaming device on another input of the Smart TV does everything you need, you could skip this step.
Dude, I don't tell the people I live with what to do. You are assuming I'm some patriarchal figure making choices for these people, that's not how it works. They make their own choices with their own money, my family situation isn't a US sitcom scenario.
You're also assuming our local broadcast solutions here are... I presume American? The balance of quality and issues is not the same worldwide, the specific technical implementations aren't the same. My "cable box" is in fact a IPTV solution and it also parses what you're defining as "OTA" directly from an aerial antenna and bakes it into the channel list. And for the record, all different sources there range from 720p to 4K with different levels of compression through some combination of regulation requirements and which broadcast source has decided to update to newer standards when.
The one thing I find interesting in this wall of text is that you seem to be okay with some datamining solutions (Apple or Nvidia) but not others. I'm not sure if this is again a regional thing, but I don't find those alternatives any better. The only meaningful difference is between being entirely offline or not. The most I can provide with a meaningful improvement is selfhosted media, at least without additional setup.
I'm making suggestions of courses of action, not demands. I'm not telling you to control your family with an iron fist, yet somehow thats the idea you're coming away with. If this is the first thing you think to say to me after reading what I wrote, I don't think we're communicating AT ALL. You're not happy with this and neither am I. I don't see any path to anything productive from here. I'll simply say goodbye and I hope you get what you want.
Heh. On that we agree.
Look, not everything someone posts online is a call for help. I noted the frustrations with my TV setup and why I can't or won't effectively mitigate them. It's not because I don't know my options, it's because they don't make sense to my setup at the moment. I don't mind someone suggesting something that helps, but you can safely assume I've tried the obvious stuff.