I’m not too surprised; but to take the example of one country, in the USA where I live, 11% of the people (that’s about 40M people) live below the poverty line, and that is even much less money than a livable wage where you can afford rent, food and nothing else. I’m speaking of the US as an example, but I’m sure it’s not an uncommon situation in other countries either.
My point is: a massive amount of people can’t afford to spend $100 on entertainment, ever. I spent some time with such families, and I can tell you it is not at all an uncommon thing. If they have a TV today, they probably got it for free from somewhere (possibly a dumpster), and it looks exactly like they did. That’s a massive amount of people who would desire this kind of upgrade.
Now is it the right population to serve ads to, that’s a different question.
People keep saying that no one will hack it because it will cost them $1000. Plenty of people will pay that so that they can hack it anyway. And those people will come up with the countermeasures for the rest.
Article I read says it’ll have sensors that can detech how many people are in the room; didn’t get to read the full T&Cs but you’d imagine the team behind this product has gameplanned for how people will try and circumvent whatever protections they added MacGyver style with what’s around the house.
Someone absolutely will figure out a way to hack it… it’ll be patched, people will be fined (or attempt to fine), the cat & mouse game will continue.
How does this work as a business? Are ad companies so desperate they will buy ad space on machines destined for people with zero disponible income and zero loan capability? Are the data from stalking people who can’t afford anything that valuable?
At the end of the food chain surveillance capitalism works thanks to profit from conversion from ads to purchases. How do they expect conversion by targeting people who can hardly afford rent and necessities?
They’re siphoning up those people’s data too though. And you can definitely still advertise basic goods and fast food to those people. If it’s all Unilever, Pepsico and McDonalds, they’ve got an audience for those ads.
Because there are people out there that make FUCKING TERRIBLE decisions. You ever see someone at a big box store trying to load a $3000 tv into a car that has plastic bags taped over missing windows? Or someone parking a brand new car next to their dilapidated doublewide? Those people.
And you will get people taking them up on this to put it in the man cave or the rumpus room thinking they are being slick and gaming the system “lol, its not even my main tv!” not even realising the sheer volume of data they are handing over that way and that wether you like it or not advertisers spend bilions on getting into your head without you thinking its working.
It’s called a monitor, that’s basically the difference between TVs and monitors these days, since the death of terrestrial and cable TV. So just get a regular monitor like this www.amazon.com/…/B0B4MJBSD9/ or this www.amazon.com/…/B096CG575L/
As already said you just need to buy something explicitly listed as a monitor.
One thing you’ll find is that at 55" with decent specs you’ll be paying a significantly higher price than you could find a 4k TV. That’s because good monitors of that size are often super high end displays. E.g. Nvidia branded big format gaming displays.
No, the maker has stated they have measures in place to detect any tampering, and that if you tamper with the device, fail to connect it to the Internet, or do not use it frequently they will make you return it or pay for it.
I have no doubt people will be able to hack it. What I’m saying is there is no way it could be hacked without the company finding out and forcing you to return it or pay up. When you sign up you have to give them your personal information and credit card. If you disconnect it from the Internet, filter its Internet traffic, or modify it in any way they will tell you to return it and if you don’t return it they will charge the credit card.
(d) Not make physical modifications to the Product or attach peripheral devices to the Product not expressly approved by Telly. Any attempt to open the Product’s enclosure will be deemed an unauthorized modification.
If we discover that You are not abiding by the requirements above or have disconnected the Product from an internet connection or WiFi for more than short periods each month, You will no longer be able to use the Service and You must return any Products in your possession to Telly. Failure to return Products to Telly will result in Telly charging the credit card on file.
Probably but I have to assume they’ve accounted for that and in their assessment the risk of breaking the usage agreement is greater than the value and effort required to exploit the device
I genuinely don’t know who would ever sign up for this. If you’re too broke to afford a TV, just watch on your phone or laptop. Nobody needs a huge screen anymore. Then there’s the number of people with ad blockers or paying a small amount per month just to get rid of ads. This just looks like a bad idea all the way from a bad VC investment to a bad job for the devs to a bad choice for the consumer. And at no point did anyone ever say “wait what are we doing again?”
Sad thing is, plenty of people will lap this up as a good thing and see it as a benefit. At least at first, until they realize they have to watch some TV based ads before they watch the ad roll on their YouTube video, followed by the second screen showing some banner ad the whole time. Yick.
That’s exactly it. When I was dirt poor, basically half of the people around me had a phone with a cracked screen, and a good amount of that also had batteries that didn’t last much at all. Not only was it a constant game of finding a public power outlet whenever you’d be out for a while, but even staying home, you couldn’t do much of anything that would drain your battery too hard. There was a thing at the time where some phones had batteries that kept turning off unless you hit them on the side until they worked again, but it was a while ago so maybe that was solved by manufacturers since.
It’s incredible now that I live in a middle class neighborhood, how literally every single phone is perfectly functional. It really does change everything.
Anyway, that kind of population would happily get a free TV with ads. Now whether it is the kind of population that those ads would be most effective on is another question, since they basically have zero spending power.
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