This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Take away:
Every single tech company eventually becomes an ad-company and/or a data company. Whether it's "humble" beginnings are hardware or software...
They've just not envisioned any other way to monetize. As "smart" and "innovative" as they supposedly are...
We are now, and shall be for the foreseeable future, The Product. With little to no control how data about ourselves is consumed/used/monetized.
🙄 🤡 🖕
I would suggest redirecting slightly. Every single publicly traded tech company eventually fully enshittifies into predatory ad/data revenue generation due to the fundamental requirement that they not only generate profit, but that they consistently generate growth.
I could create an amazing app, sell it for $5, and if 5 million people download it and I don’t sell out or incorporate and go public, I could just cruise on it and retire happily. There’s no intrinsic pressure to switch profit models because I don’t owe anybody shit.
Yes. But not (just) that they haven't envisioned other monetization - even if other cash is flowing in, they'll eventually put ads and data brokerage into their business model on top of that.
And why not? Consumers have repeatedly, time and time again, shown tolerance for it.
:(
This really is the takeaway. Reddit is crap? Stop visiting, talking, posting about it. Starbucks is a terrible company? Stop spending money there. Until that happens none of this is going away.
“All these streaming services trying to make money off your data are bad” says article that requires a membership to read. I’m OOTL on whatever this Roku Moana controversy is and I guess I’ll remain that way, at least as long as the source is Vox.
This bullshit is why I'm never buying a smart TV, and if I can't find a dumb one I'll just attach a Nvidia shield or Raspberry Pi streaming box and just watch my Plex content on it. The days of paying to watch commercials should be long over
This, but Jellyfin. Plex has already begun its enshitification, sadly.
Yeah, so far the Plex changes haven't affected me but I'm prepared to move to Jellyfin at some point
Unfortunately jellyfin is still kinda shit by comparison. I use both in tandem. You're right though, Plex is rapidly turning shittier
Android TV at least you can do simple custom launchers. I'm still hoping a more normal Linux becomes popular for TV. Hoping maybe SteamOS will be the pathway for that
Are there even any good launchers for Android TV? Last time I looked, everything I found was either abandoned so long ago that they don't work on modern devices or had such a scuffed UI that they were damn near unusable.
I like Flauncher or ProjectIvy. I'm using the latter on the living room TV and it works great.
Thanks, bookmarked your reply, I'll have to check those when I get the chance.
I'm new to this idea. Mainly I'm after the apk Sportsfire, but I'm starting to research how to set that up best I can for my boomer dad. He's a sports fiend but Canadian. Doesn't want to pay USA corps.
What's the best Android TV device that supports custom ROM or launchers? Making the GUI easy as possible to use without hampering my ability to install things is the balance I guess.
edit: I remember LTT did a video warning about the cheapest noname/phantom brand chinese Android TVs having compromised/suspicious or outright confirmed malware embedded in the kernel. So, being careful there.
The Onn 4K Pro is the best budget Android tv device right now. The launcher I recommend is called Projectivy.
Walmart USA only I think? So if the region lock prevents me from adding a custom ROM that won't work here.
I'll add Projectivy Launcher to whatever I buy tho, thanks.
Hmm, I’m not familiar with any region locks on these devices… Projectivy is available in the Google Play Store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spocky.projengmenu
DRM-laced streaming apps sadly makes that unlikely.
