We're gonna start to see this a whole lot more in the coming years. Right to repair is great, but when software support ends, we're kinda screwed.
Avoid buying smart TVs. Consider something like a Chromecast attached to the hdmi port, at least then it's a lot less e waste when the Chromecast goes obsolete, and needs replacing.
Would also help if the likes of the EU required realistic support life's for the software on devices like TVs.
@natural20 @quixoticgeek yeah, when I needed to get big screens for the office, made sure they're ones where you can turn off the smart.
@natural20 @quixoticgeek We have a smart TV but it has never been connected to our home network. We just treat it like a plain old monitor.
However, since these things are getting silly cheap, I assume companies are selling them at a loss expecting to make back their money by collecting and selling data. Eventually they’ll start putting non-dismissible “not connected to wifi” error to force users to put them online.
If you do not have root, have open source, and control the bootloader, you have no freedom, and then you are fucked.
@quixoticgeek What bothers me more than a telly bricking itself is the idea that a modern car might do so. "You didn't seriously expect the cloud servers to still be running after twenty years did you?"
@quixoticgeek@social.v.st
That’s why I use an Apple TV. TVs have really bad OSes with really outdated apps.
@quixoticgeek Taking inspiration from Right to Repair, do you think we might get to a point where unbundling the monitor from the smarts is legally mandated? I find it a bit harder to make this case compared to mandated local-loop unbundling that gave us the separation between ISPs and physical broadband (à la Openreach) but stil, maybe?
@quixoticgeek Right to repair and cryptographic overbearing schemes is going to be an interesting (read explosive, and Big Encryption Chain can get shafted) interaction.
Intel deprecating the whole secure enclave tech broke an already exclusive ecosystem to decrypt blue ray media (and 4K streams?) on newer machines.
@quixoticgeek @goldstein @Sevoris
And this is why you make sure DRM is disabled in your browser and never buy or consider buying media from any one who takes issue with that. If they take issue with it, what they are saying is you should pirate their stuff.
On top of that, stop buying into the concept of SmartTVs and the like. Just the HDMI port to your PC. Enjoy a nice extra large monitoring and not having to worry about what sort of janky stuff it is running and run FreeBSD, Linux, or the like on it. Or if you really want Windows, but basically at that point your display is under your control frankly way more usable.
@quixoticgeek bearing in mind how modern manufacturing techniques have brought the price of white goods and electronics tumbling down I’m not sure how that can be reconciled with right to repair. That’s not to say that it can’t or shouldn’t be; merely that I think it might be quite difficult.
@peterbrown just means that repairs need to be very easy and cost effective...
@quixoticgeek The big problem is that any large size, good resolution TV will be "smart", but I absolutely agree. We stopped using the onboard computer on our TV a long time ago. It's all now the Firestick or the Chromecast.