The Future of Smart TVs: Ad-Free Options and Government Regulation

One of the great benefits of cord cutting is now all but gone - ads. Yes, I know I'm just frustrated that this benefit has been lost. If there's one thing I've learned from Amazon's Kindle, it's that you can save money by avoiding ads. There's a price for that ad-free experience, and I'd be willing to pay it. In fact, if I had to choose between paying for an ad-free subscription or dealing with the hassle of finding alternative ways to avoid ads, I'd opt for the former.

The idea of paying for an ad-free experience is not new, but it's still not widely available. Smart TV manufacturers have made it clear that they see ads as a necessary part of the user experience. However, this approach has proven to be flawed. Many consumers, like me, are turned off by the constant stream of commercials on our screens. We're forced to scroll through pages and pages of terms and conditions before we can even consider setting up our TVs. It's exhausting, and it's not a good way to start the day.

That's why I think it's time for smart TV manufacturers to take a hard look at their business model. If they're going to make money from us, shouldn't they be willing to provide us with a decent viewing experience? It's time for some serious changes in the way we approach advertising on our TVs. We need more control over what we see and when we see it. Maybe regulations can help.

Government regulation is a topic that's often met with resistance, but I think it's essential for protecting consumers like us. The FCC and SEC are already involved in regulating TV broadcasts and advertising, as well as issues of privacy and security. Why not extend their reach to smart TVs? It's clear that we need more oversight when it comes to data collection and sharing on our devices. Smart TVs are a prime example of how our personal data can be exploited for profit.

One area where I think government regulation could make a real difference is in the realm of privacy. The likes of Huawei have already faced scrutiny due to concerns over data security and privacy. Why not apply similar scrutiny to smart TV manufacturers? If they're willing to take on the risk of being sued by governments, perhaps they should be held to higher standards.

The problem with current regulations is that they often apply to specific industries or sectors, rather than taking a comprehensive approach to protecting consumers across all areas of technology. Smart TVs are not just a consumer product; they're also a hub for data collection and sharing. If we don't take a more holistic approach to regulating these devices, we risk losing control over our personal data once and for all.

One potential solution is to define what an ad is and how it can be displayed on a TV. This could help differentiate suggested content from commercial advertising, making the viewing experience more consistent and predictable across all smart TVs. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a start. The real challenge lies in ensuring that these regulations are enforced consistently, both within and between countries.

Of course, implementing such regulations would be no easy feat. Smart TV manufacturers operate in a global market, with different regulatory frameworks applying to different regions. This could lead to a patchwork of rules and standards, making it difficult for consumers to navigate the complex world of smart TVs. Nevertheless, I believe that the benefits of regulation far outweigh the challenges.

Ultimately, what's at stake here is our right to control how we use our devices. We need more transparency and accountability from smart TV manufacturers, as well as a greater understanding of how our personal data is being used. It's time for us to take back control of our viewing experiences and demand better from those who profit from our screen time.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni spent some time ranting about how smart tvs are stupid how they're starting to cause more problems than they solve and how i think things will get worse if we don't step up and demand better now i want to talk about what could be done to make things better and maybe just as importantly what should not be done welcome back everyone i'm caleb dennison and i have opinions recently i am used my snarker yourself and hopefully you as well by poking some fun at some very real problems i've identified with smart tvs where i'm sitting right now smart tvs are kind of looking stupid now i want to follow up on that and talk about what could be done what should be done and what should not be done to make smart tvs better because at the end of the day if we leave it up to tv manufacturers and smart tv platforms like roku and google to do the right thing well for some reason i'm just not convinced that's the right move personally i think we'll need to demand change if we want to see things move in the right direction so let's talk about that before i dig into it here's a thought-provoking question for you we see all this software going subscription-based what if that happened to our hardware too what if you had to pay a monthly or annual fee to keep your tv from turning into a brick think it could happen does the mere thought make you outraged let's talk about that down in the comments section and while you're down there if you like this kind of discussion consider liking and subscribing give away add a million subs oh and by the way folks be on guard for spammers and scammers in the comments section not just here but any channel if we're giving something away you can trust that you'll see me talking about it right here in the video okay otherwise it's probably not legit alright thanks for joining me let's get into it okay so i get that smart tvs don't do as much as phones do at least for now but they really are starting to look more like really big phones or tablets and they're beginning to act like them too i think smart tvs should have the same kind of processing horsepower that we see in well at least mid-grade phones and for a few reasons first is upgradeability slash update ability i know friends and co-workers who bought really high-end tvs in 2017 and haven't seen an update in well over a year and they're not going to get one either that means the latest version of apps will not run on their tv and that means new features and functionality introduced to streaming services may not be supported going forward never mind helpful improvements to the user experience if smart tvs had more powerful chips in them they could be updated well into the future keeping the smart tv part on par with the tv's picture performance whenever i talk about how future proof a tv is these days i end up being more focused on the smart tv platform's ability to evolve than i am with how well the tv's picture quality will hold up more horsepower also just means a better user experience less lag and glitches that get in the way of being able to sit down and enjoy tv anything that stands to remove hassle from just watching tv can only be a good thing i also think a more powerful smart tv could be a more secure smart tv which brings me to my next suggestion there is a very real possibility that the most hackable device in your home is your smart tv fortunately most of us have internet routers that act as a sort of firewall but as we've seen in the past a tv's ethernet or wi-fi connection is not the only door into the tv's operating system with a more powerful processor a tv could support its own baked in security measures and i think this is already absolutely essential given how many tvs have microphones built into either the tv itself or the tvs remote but it's even more important given that video cameras are starting to return to tvs plus more and more personal data ends up passing through our tvs now from passwords to payment information bottom line is tvs need as much if not more security as we expect from our phones and they need frequent updates your smart tv may only get one or two updates over its lifetime if any which over the course of a three year lifespan would be insufficient let alone the seven to ten years most folks keep their tvs now as we talk about how to make our smart tvs better i think we should also talk about the right to have a dumb tv if that's what we want to google's credit this is an option baked into the latest google tvs from the likes of sony and tcl right there at the beginning you can either choose to proceed with google tv or not and if you choose the latter you basically have a dumb tv which you can then make smart if you like by connecting a streaming stick or box or a game console this is so basic but to me it's one of the easiest most meaningful steps the industry could take give us this option so kind of springing off this idea of being able to choose whether we have a smart tv or a dumb tv i think it would be massively beneficial if a tv's os and its smart features could be separated from a tv's core functionality and update ability what i'm saying here is that i want the ability to update my tv so it has the latest local dimming algorithm or picture processing ai without necessarily having to update to the latest version of web os or tizen roku android or google tv and from there we could enable or disable automatic updates for either choice now i know this kind of flies in the face of roku and google's plans where everything is bundled up into one interface but i think you can see how essential this would be to keeping a tv's picture performance up to date if we were given the option to have a dumb tv now it's inevitable we have to talk about ads with the current exception of apple tvs platform ads are popping up right in the user interface of all smart tv devices you can't escape them we should fix this if smart tv platforms insist on injecting ads into every nook and cranny of a smart tv then at least give us an ad free subscription option part of the reason i subscribe to the ad free tier of some streaming video services is so i don't have to see the ads at all so when you shove an ad down my throat anyway i get really frustrated frankly i think ads delivered through the tv software should just be banned more on that idea in a bit but if that isn't going to happen then give me an ad free option i can pay for yes i realize i'm just frustrated that one of the great benefits of cord cutting is now all but gone go ahead and okay boomer me if you like i can take it but look at amazon's kindle as an example you want to save money there's ads hate the ads there's a price for that look i just prefer no ads at all but if it has to be this way give me an ad free subscription next up with what will most certainly be the most controversial and hated idea i've had in some time government regulation i know i know it's so easy to hate this idea given that the us government is notoriously bad at understanding tech and even worse at understanding where tech needs regulation but let's see if we can play this out both the positive and negative implications the reason government regulation comes to mind is that to an extent the fcc and sec here in the u.s are already involved with regulations around tvs and broadcasting advertising etc they are also involved in matters of privacy and security in a bunch of other tech sectors it stands to reason that they'll be woefully late to the party but at some point some elected official is going to act like it's a novel idea to protect the u.s consumer and finally see smart tvs for the regulation target that they already are one area in which i think government regulation might actually help is in issues of privacy specifically data privacy i mean there's been a huge crackdown on the likes of huawei for example due to privacy and security concerns if the government is so concerned about the liability that huawei's phones and 5g infrastructure represent that they should wake up and apply the same scrutiny to smart tvs and smart tv makers i know that data privacy is such a huge issue that it's easy to just throw up our hands and say well guess there's nothing we can do about it but i don't think we can afford to be that complacent and look i think we all know that when we get hit with those multiple pages of terms and conditions on a tv and i'm talking like war and peace length stuff here we tend to just scroll right past them and just click the ok button now look i know that i'm as guilty of this as anybody you've seen my tv set up reviews and i just i don't have the time i just click ok with that said don't do what i do just for the sake of making a quicker video we need to be more careful it's not a great idea now to be fair some tv makers have made it a bit easier to opt out of sharing certain data but it is still too complicated for most folks to want to dig in and figure it out and also you only get one shot at this like once you get past that there's no going back unless you completely reset the tv and start the whole setup process over again maybe if there were regulations in place it could be made simpler for us to rest assured we were reasonably protected regulations could also define what an ad is you know differentiate suggested content from a commercial for toilet paper for instance and it could govern where and when ads would be allowed to appear it could make the experience more consistent and predictable across all smart tvs and that doesn't sound too bad right of course i'll be the first to admit that what i'm proposing here would be a seriously heavy lift i mean this would require tvs going into the us to be configured one way while tvs headed for europe would be configured another way and tvs going to australia india etc they'd all have to be different to be honest it's probably not all that plausible unless we were to start talking about international regulations you know what the more i talk about it the more ludicrously impossible it sounds and yet it's probably something we need look i think the message i'm trying to send out here is that smart tvs need some serious attention somehow the current collective concept of what a tv is and what it does is super antiquated we are well past the simpler times when all tvs were dumb and our biggest worry back then was how to keep kids from being able to watch porn remember the v chip if only it was that simple but it isn't simple it's complicated and complicated issues need comprehensive solutions so my hope is that through heightened awareness we can draw enough attention to these issues that fixes can start being put in place otherwise i think our smart tvs and the experiences they provide in our homes might just spiral out of control or maybe we're just screwed what do you think thanks as always for watching everyone what do you make of all this let me know down in the comments section don't forget to like and subscribe and here's two other videos i think you'll like\n"