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Comment by firasd | Hacker News Reader

My Panasonic 'Smart TV' is from 2014 and its app marketplace doesn't have Netflix. It's just not there. My laptop is from 2011, and since it runs the latest Chrome browser, it can play Netflix just fine. Made me think: the fact that laptops & desktops are consumer devices sold with hardware and operating systems that do general-purpose computing is underrated.

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"General-purpose" computing is anathema to large businesses. They make far more profit with piecemal value-based pricing and planned obsolescence.

There was a brief blissful window when computing was cheap enough to be a mass market product, but too expensive for manufacturers to add lockdowns.

In general, accept that the TV is never going to be really Smart or keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest in content and services. Given the fragmentation it's just not going to happen. (May be a day would come when there's a common platform for all TVs but I don't see that). On the other hand, any of the major "TV" platforms - Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku, ...etc would receive regular enhances and no major content provider can choose to ignore them. So, depending on your preference, pick one and make your TV just a dumb display (which is exactly what it should be to be honest - it allows you to upgrade the hardware while keeping the display)

I was in the market for a TV late last year and was astounded to discover that “dumb” TVs are no longer available at your typical retail outlet. Every one at Walmart, Sams, Target, Costco, etc. has some sort of OS running on it.

I just want an HDMI cable port and a decent display, but it’s quite obvious that isn’t what makes the TV manufacturers money these days.

Exactly my thoughts too. I was "forced" into buying a smart TV this year. The app store sucks and they serve occasional ads too. I pulled the LAN and wifi off the TV. I am happily using an after market custom android box plugged into HDMI and a Bose TV sound bar. The TV is just for the display.

> ...it’s quite obvious that isn’t what makes the TV manufacturers money these days.

Or adding in smart capabilities is < 10$. And without those features you loose some number of sales. I'm sure they do the cost analysis and find adding in features that 90% of people wont use still helps differentiate your product.

For example if I saw 2 identical tvs. One had smart capabilities the other didn't. Same price for both. What TV would the average joe buy...the smart tv. I'm sure people would also buy the smart tv if it's only 15$ more expensive than the dumb one. Netting the manufacture an additional 5$.

Basically just have to buy a PC display if you want a "dumb" TV.

You will lack the RF and DVB modems though so you will need an added box to handle the actual TV part. Which is not too bad actually.

A few months ago, I couldn't watch TV on my TV because the TV-watching app kept crashing. It didn't even occur to me that this problem was possible in theory. I had to factory reset it.

Look for bottom of the barrel and off brand TVs.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sceptre-55-Class-4K-2160P-LED-TV-...

They still exist, but are getting harder to find.

I still hold to my plasma TV like an obsessive fan, as a cinephile I find its color rendering still miles ahead compared to any modern smart-TVs.

Have you seen an Oled set? Those look awesome because the blacks are so black. They are coming down in price and will eventually replace my Plasma set.

Actually, no. Genuinely glad to hear from another plasma owner that there's current technology that can replace it, performance-wise. Will follow the oled prices, they're still quite a little expensive for the time being.

We got lucky with PCs escaping IBM's grip.

All home computers were consumer devices, with a big part of their OS burned into ROM.

For most part upgrading them meant buying a new device.

Now with the commoditization and low sales, it seems OEMs are eager to go back to that model.

EDIT: OS -> device.

Excellent observation. Though, arguably the S-100 machines would have taken that niche if not for the PC happening.

Anything without slots or other expansion and interface ports isn't really a computer, it's an appliance, or at best a terminal.

How things are going, I can easily imagine most people using laptops and NUCs, with USB taking the role of Amiga 500's expansion slot, for example.

With traditional towers becoming a niche thing, or back to time-sharing, with browser/cloud infrastructure instead of green phosphor and mainframe.

Nice tip about the S-100 machines, I don't remember them.

It's funny how gamers are probably the people that will keep the general computing revolution alive through the next swing of the pendulum.

And that's despite the high-end games industry doing its damnest to stop it, trying to get people to switch over to consoles. And that's beyond the basic problem that popular AAA games being upper-bounded by the current-at-release console generation holds PC gaming back.

My Panasonic 'Smart TV' is from 2013, and its app marketplace doesn't have Netflix. It did have Hulu and some others that were discontinued a few months ago. So I had a smart TV capable of watching Hulu, and now I don't. The pre-installed app was even forcefully removed. And so have a few others. So the app wall now has holes in it. No notifications, by the way, I had to google what happened with my disappeared icons. I wouldn't even be surprised if people are still being charged for the Hulu service they can't use anymore. (I wasn't subscribed anyways, but found out when I finally decided I wanted to check it out for a trial period)

Why would you ever use your TV to be connected to the internet? Just a matter of time before your TV gets hacked. I use either a chromecast or apple tv, and see the tv as a monitor with speakers, nothing more.

I made tbe smart TV mistake. Not only are they bad for the reasons you state they are also utter junk. All I really want is a good panel with plenty of ports and good speakers.

Why would TV need speakers? It's almost the same argument as with the smart TVs. I have a nice set of standalone speakers, why would I want to pay for the crappy speakers in a TV?

A lot of people don't care about using fancy speakers, are perfectly fine using the TV's crappy speakers, and would be much more pissed that the TV they bought is useless out of the box unless they buy speakers for it.

A lot of people don't care about using fancy streaming boxes, are perfectly fine using the TV's crappy smart features, and would be much more pissed that the TV they bought is useless out of the box unless they buy a streaming device for it.

Both of these things are true, and an argument for options.

Sorry, I meant good external speakers.

It's all but impossible to buy a high quality dumb TV these days. I bought a 4k TV this past year with the intention of never connecting it to the internet but I guess I didn't do enough research because I can't even access all the functions of the TV without pairing it with an Android "remote" over a wireless network. Even better it's from a manufacturer that sells users' viewing habits.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/06/vizio-smart-tv-viewing-h...

Even now they make it opt out. To disable it I had to go into some obscure submenu and disable an option called "smart interactivity," something I never would have found on my own. I had to look up a guide on how to stop my TV from selling data about everything I view on the TV to advertisers!

The way "smart" TVs are going makes me wary of what other "smart" appliances will do in the future.

You have to buy the hotel or commercial versions.

https://www.samsung.com/us/business/solutions/industries/hos...

http://www.lg.com/us/business/commercial-display/vertical-ma...

These still have crappier panels and features(HDR, etc) than the smart models though. You literally cannot buy a top-spec "display", like you used to be able to in the mid/late 2000s with plasma and earlier LCDs

Unless it is a computer monitor. Then it will work perfectly fine.

That sucks. I've always found the hotel/commercial high end ones to be sufficient for my needs.

I've dreamed for years to have a single cloud OS, and then multiple "dumb" monitors and speakers controlled by that OS, Chrome seemed to be aiming for that, but privacy concerns could kill that dream.

Beyond that, that nothing on the hardware side stops you from running any software you want to.

Expect the PC to morph into something more akin to a tablet or "smart" TV if the MAFIAA get what they want (and Intel and crew seems all too willing to give in).

And that point your GPC will be relegated to a developer workstation that may well require a verified employer and regular visits from an auditor to own.

Sadly this is a direction Microsoft is taking with the rumored upcoming "S Mode". If this works for them (and I hope it don’t) even PC will be locked down and no more useful than a tablet. Some decision makers are forgetting hardware is for running software, not blocking everything under the sun.

You’re getting downvoted, but while what you describe probably isn’t going to happen, you’re not too far off. We’re already “there” with walled garden app stores, and outside of that app signing where you need to pay to be in a “developer program” to be able to sign your apps [1], DRM baked into the browser (EME) and hardware (HDCP), mandatory logins to cloud services for appliances, etc.

[1] (Thinking of macOS here. I’m sure a non-centralized way of signing would also work.)

Most likely because i used terms that to valley-dwellers are a bunch of big red flags.

That would be the beginning of a killer opportunity for regulatory arbitrage.

Yup. Cory Doctorow warned us about it for years (Google keywords: "war on general-purpose computing").

And the sad thing, I'm not sure we can escape that. MAFIAA wants it. Large businesses want it. And to top it off, computer security specialists want it too. Ideas like sandboxing, or trusted computing, or hardware crypto modules - all provide security while simultaneously taking control away from the user.

I seriously fear that soon, having a general-purpose computer connected to the Internet will be considered a public safety issue ("because botnets!"), and eventually you'll need a professional license to be allowed to work with a Turing-complete language ("because langsec!"). I very much don't like it.

Yeah he followed it up with "civil war on GPC", where he basically started to favor "DRM". This with the caveat that it was the owner of the computer that would have control of the keys, and frankly i do not see that happening.

Security people don't tend to ban these things. You can use Linux if you want to. You can sideload Android apps if you want to. But the vast vast vast vast majority of people will never do this and never want to do this. Therefore, we provide an environment that works well for these people takes advantage of that design.

Common things should be easy. Rare things should be possible.

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