I’m guessing it’s all advertising deals and spyware. Oh, and the TV is still shit.
Comment on 👴☝️I did that
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
How have TVs gotten so cheap. It’s gotta be shit.
helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 2 months ago
4am@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Yea, TVs are all “Smart” now. But they don’t have any truly new or useful features, they just record your conversations and transmit occurrences of keywords as “usage and diagnostic” data. I guess now they can use wifi to do occupancy scans of your house too, so that’s fun. Oh and they use Bluetooth to scan for nearby devices that are willing to cooperate in case you don’t put them on the LAN and they transmit that way.
Anyway, TNG has left Netflix. Can you fucking believe it?
Speculater@lemmy.world 2 months ago
TNG left Netflix like eight years ago… 🦜Yarrrr
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
My blu-ray set is still on my shelf.
DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Telly is a TV you can pre-order, which is completely free but apparently pays for itself with all the ads it will display lol
sibannac@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nearly all tvs are smart tvs that make money with showing ads and selling data. Any loss on the hardware is made up on selling customer data and ad space. The tvs would be amazing if they didn’t come with smart features.
stickly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Is there any way to lobotomize these smart TVs? Even the specs on a cheaper mid-range would blow my current dinosaur out of the water
modus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Don’t connect them to the internet.
stickly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
True, I’ll probably end up going that route when this one dies (assuming they don’t all require sign in and heartbeats at that point)
Was hoping for something like a FOSS OS just for the convenience of keeping jellyfin up to date and cleaning up the useless baked in apps.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Iv stared coming across some that’s not remotely an option. They require a logged in account before they accept any input.
If you attempt to use a DNS ad blocker they also just stop working. Its fucking toxic.
Gormadt@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
Never connect them to the internet
You want your favorite streaming service on there? Get an older (used office) PC, load it up with (your prefered flavor of) Linux, get a bluetooth keyboard mouse combo, hook it up to your HDMI port, and go ham.
Some TVs even let you turn them on directly to a specific HDMI port for a bonus fun time of never having to see the TVs menu.
conartistpanda@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Find out the streaming service limits the quality then stop paying for it and pirate that shit instead.
toddestan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Not really, the smarts are integrated into the control circuitry. You can’t bypass them and turn them into simple, dumb displays.
Depending on the model, you can block the TV from the internet and leave it on set to one of the inputs and the smarts bits won’t bother you again. Other ones are more intrusive and pushy about it.
BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world 1 month ago
did this happen recently? i got mine in 2019 its enormous and all it does it turn on and lets me play xbox
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
2018 is about when it started but it was a very small number of tvs. By 2020 it was a common thing but it was a dedicated line of tvs from each brand. By 2024 it was all cheaper tvs basically. And now it’s basically every TV and even some monitors.
The non smart TVs are almost as hard to find now as finding a smart one was in 2018. And monitors are starting to have smart features and ads even among the highest end offerings. But unlike tvs they arnt any cheaper for it. Its stupid.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 1 month ago
The build quality is not great, they saved on backlight heatsinking so the LEDs will bake and delaminate, causing dark spots, discoloration etc.
leaveWitX@lemmy.world 1 month ago
TV?No, it’s just a big display
RedMari@reddthat.com 2 months ago
They externalize their true cost to the environment and laborers.
_stranger_@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Don’t forget ads! They’re also subsidized by the ads they’re definitely going to inject if you use the built in OS.
architect@thelemmy.club 2 months ago
Usually the cheap ones are so cheap they don’t even do that.
rbos@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
In both cases. We don’t pay nearly the real cost of gasoline.
RedMari@reddthat.com 1 month ago
💯
timochka@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
TVs were always cheap compared to cost to make the things - it’s not just the “oh, they have advertising now” thing.
Source: I worked in electronics retail in the late 80s/early 90s, and in one of the world’s largest consumer electronics firms when my career proper started.
The TVs in the window of the local electronics chain store (or in Walmart) were sold at practically zero margin, or more often than not at a loss. The retail chains would basically hold a gun to the CE companies heads and tell them if you’re not willing to sell at a loss, nothing you make is going in the window display, or worst case we’re not selling you at all.
The retail chains didn’t care because all their profit was in selling accessories and unnecessary extended warranties. The CE companies hoped that they could make it up by selling you the more expensive model they actually made a profit on once you were in the door, or by selling you a VCR or whatever as well.
This is why the TV companies were always looking for a “next big thing” (flat-screen, ultraflat, widescreen, HD, 3D, 4k, 8k…) to differentiate the “next model up”, which is to say the model the store would actually allow them to make a profit on.
This particular race-to-the-bottom mutually assured destruction business model is also the reason there is practically no consumer electronics manufacturing left in the West, of course. And why manufacturers grasp at stuff like advertising.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
TVs were always cheap compared to cost to make the things - it’s not just the “oh, they have advertising now” thing.
Yes, and the cost of making them keeps dropping. When you were selling TVs in 1991, a 30 inch TV cost about $500 in 1991 dollars. The technology back then just basically made it complex and labor intensive to manufacture, and they were so heavy that it actually took significant number of human labor hours just to get it from factory to store to the specific store’s display. Merely putting a 30 inch TV in the window of a store was probably a 2-man lift.
Whereas today it’s a bunch of robots in cleanrooms automating production of high volumes of solid state LCD components to where full color displays can be put in cheap appliances, and finished 30 inch TVs being thin and light enough to be moved with one hand while sipping a coffee with the other.
I’m not surprised it’s much cheaper today, even a tiny fraction of the time period you’re talking about, even when back then they were selling at a loss.
timochka@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I try to always be nice to retail staff, because I remember well the sheer misery of having to stand sandwiched in a too-small window display cabinet, scraper in one hand and bottle of weak vinegar in the other, scraping the bloody advertising stickers off the glass (that were stuck on with a glue stronger than cement) with a roasting hot halogen floodlamp about 1" from your head, just because a new range has come in… Particularly soul-destroying if it’s that time of year when the same 5 royalty-free Christmas songs are on permanent loop in the background.
And yeah, you make a very good point. Sheer size/weight and cost of shipping would have been a huge chunk of the price of those old TVs! Not to mention the cost of healthcare for all the staff who put their back out dragging the damned things to and from The Cage… ;)
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
Shame, I particularly miss Panasonic and Sony
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
TVs are made from components that are made through almost entirely automated processes at such large scales that the underlying raw material and cost of shipping become the main driver of cost. Paradoxically, that means that TVs that have gotten thinner and lighter use less material and therefore have a lower floor of how little it can cost.
Once a production line is set up to make the components, each additional one produced costs very little, so making high volume runs is the key: lots of shared parts between brands and models, very long production runs to minimize the cost of redesign or retooling or downtime.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
They’re single use and throwaway, with the bonus of spyware. Like everything made today. Everything.
Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org 2 months ago
They stopped making them out of gasoline.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Boy you are gonna be shocked when you learn about where plastic comes from.
pyre@lemmy.world 1 month ago
i mean they do have less plastic than before.