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So you're right - it may not be a nefarious thing related to ads, but for people like me, that's an irrelevant detail. I don't even want to think about buying a TV that can't get volume control right.
How many of them can't get basic volume control to work?
Yes, the fact that modern TVs are so filled with SW is one of the reasons I haven't upgraded my TV in 15 years. More importantly, can anyone explain to me the benefit of these TVs (other than display) compared to the old ones? What smartness in modern TVs can I get that's important to me that I can't get via a Roku or similar device?
> Hardware isn’t inherently bug-free and the “quality” of old hardware is usually due to its narrow scope of functionality;
Same question as above: Why not have narrow scope? What expanded scope in new TVs is actually something I would care for?
And I've never come across a "HW" TV that failed at the very basics. I've never had to return one for a recall. One of the things that makes adding SW to any device really crappy is the "ship now, fix later" mentality. And a lot of things often never get fixed (e.g. my old, ATI video card had features that were broken in Linux, and they never got around to fixing it - never bought ATI/AMD cards since).
> the ability to (theoretically trivially) modify software means that hardware can/does become better/more capable.
Until the manufacturer stops supporting it. I recall when I bought my (dumb) TV, smart TVs were just coming out, and most of my friends opted for smart ones ("it already has Netflix"). Fast forward less than 3 years, and they all switched to Roku or something similar because the TV apps either sucked or stopped working.
Owning a TV is something one should be able to do for over 10 years. Can you guarantee that most of the nice features on your TV will work more than 10 years from now?
Likewise, I should be able to buy a 10+ year old used TV and have basic stuff just work without having to register, etc. If it doesn't, then these manufacturers are simply adding much more waste to the ecosystem than the dumb ones did.
(As you can guess, I have often bought old, used TVs and never had trouble with them).
I think this is the crux of our confusion; you may not desire the expanded functionality but others certainly do. You can suggest that manufacturers force unwanted functionality onto consumers but I have trouble accepting that premise unless admit our own complicity; maybe I’m part of that problem though.
> Owning a TV is something one should be able to do for over 10 years.
Again, that’s your preference and the choice you’ve already made; I choose to not set arbitrary time limits but instead make decisions on purchasing new TVs (and other non-essential products) depending on the available technologies and toys—and, of course, the girth (if any) of my wallet . We have different preferences, we make decisions based on those preferences, yet—as far as I can tell—we are both satisfied with our choices; why complain about a system capable of implementing a bug that doesn’t affect us?
> Can you guarantee that most of the nice features on your TV will work more than 10 years from now?
Almost certainly I can. There are both massive and minuscule communities, aftermarket solutions, and DIY makers/hackers/activists that focus on all kinds of technologies and products dating back over a hundred years. The original iPod is 25 years old and yet there are still folks making firmware updates for it. The Commodore 64 has a multitude of projects, products, communities, and marketplaces to keep the product alive — nearly fifty years after it was released! There are literally thousands of examples. Interestingly, and calling back to my original point, these kinds of secondary markets are only possible because of those products’ use of a combination of quality underlying hardware and user-updatable/modifiable software—well, and that nerds like us dig breaking things.
Only you know what is important to you, but I like automatic volume levels, for example. I stayed at AirBnB a couple years ago, which had some commodity TV (Vizio?) w/o automatic volume and learned they still do loud commercials. My home TV keeps volume at the same audible level during commercials. Same with auto-brightness, I get nice image all through the day and night illumination levels in the living room. Voice control is handy when you don't live alone so other people may have a remote at the moment or it could take some time to find.
Apps on my 6 y.o. TV still work just fine, I don't need to attach devices to a TV, which neatly hangs on a wall without things hanging from it. The TV is running Android so it will keep updating from the Google's app store as long as the app vendor keeps maintaining it.
Auto-brightness - I put in a lot of effort in setting the brightness/contrast, and would really not want some SW messing it up.
Voice control - couldn't care less (and yes, I do own voice assistants and use them).
