Yeah, this is a concern. I know lots of people say “just don’t connect it to the Internet” and turn it back into a dumb TV. And that works great right now. But the way things are heading I could see manufacturers requiring an Internet connection for it to work.
The recent Roku scandal (where they required users to agree to TOS changes before they could use their device in any way) was a wakeup call for many.
I’m hoping that a viable open source streaming device will become popular soon. I know there are solutions out there like hooking up an old PC or a Raspberry Pi as a media server. But I’m thinking of more of an out of the box solution.
I put a PiHole (DNS sinkhole) on my Dad’s home network. The Samsung TV’s he has flood it with thousands of requests when they cant phone home - they refuses to give up. And these sets are many years old.
Yeah, this is a concern. I know lots of people say “just don’t connect it to the Internet” and turn it back into a dumb TV. And that works great right now. But the way things are heading I could see manufacturers requiring an Internet connection for it to work.
The recent Roku scandal (where they required users to agree to TOS changes before they could use their device in any way) was a wakeup call for many.
I’m hoping that a viable open source streaming device will become popular soon. I know there are solutions out there like hooking up an old PC or a Raspberry Pi as a media server. But I’m thinking of more of an out of the box solution.
I put a PiHole (DNS sinkhole) on my Dad’s home network. The Samsung TV’s he has flood it with thousands of requests when they cant phone home - they refuses to give up. And these sets are many years old.