I never understood why any of the smartness had to be built into the TV in the first place. Sure, it's useful for the first year, and then the seriously underpowered hardware they installed into it will have trouble with just about anything.

I bought a Philips Ambilight OLED TV probably over 8 years now. Brilliant tv, great quality, I still see no reason to replace it at all. But its built in AndroidTV is garbage.

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WD-42 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Because it’s extremely profitable for them to serve ads and sell PI. Kind of like how the airline industry makes more money off credit card shenanigans than actual plane tickets.

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asnelt 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I hear you. This is exactly the reason why I have a digital signage display rather than a Smart TV.

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XorNot 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because having the TV play from streaming apps out of the box is pretty useful.

The problem is we've not enforced any strong regulation against ads, downgrade rights or hack ability.

I don't need "better performance" from the system built into my TV I just need it to run Kodi.

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_puk 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Similar boat - Panasonic glass fronted TV. Circa 2013. None of the smart works anymore.

1080p, but the picture far outstrips most other TVs I've owned to this day.

I have zero plans to change it, and it's usefulness has outlasted the Chromecast that's connected to it.

Yes, I put the first ads on Smart TVs. Apologies.

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unrented7977 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's so you buy a new one every few years instead of keeping the same TV for a decade or two. Capitalism cannot survive when products last a lifetime.

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drdeca 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If that’s true, then why is capitalism still around? Should it have died out in a previous generation in which many products did last a lifetime?

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MarkusQ 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Capitalism cannot survive when products last a lifetime.

This is totally backwards; capitalism would do fine in such an environment (in the same way that evolution does fine in an environment where organisms live more than just a few seconds; the whole reason we have the notion of a "lifetime" is that our germ line comes from a long line of ancestral DNA that made organisms that outlasted their competition.)

Individual companies might have to hustle to innovate or die, but that too is good for capitalism.

	▲	MarkusQ 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Whoa! I think maybe I stepped on somebody's agenda? Both capitalism and evolution depend on the fact that over time, on average, less fit organisms/organizations are displaced by better alternatives. You may not like that, but down-voting anyone who points it out doesn't make it any less true.