This is incorrect. Most people don't realize this. Do you consent your car to store all your location information in the cloud? What if TV started storing all things you watch in the cloud? Tomorrow, if all the car/tv manufacturers started doing this, what choice do you have? No, the option is not "do not use cars/tv". And tbh, I don't even think 80% of the population is cognizant about what is being collected and what it's used for. This is the reality and they have "accepted" it as-is. This is the situation we find ourselves with email (all email providers mark any other email as spam).
> Tomorrow, if all the car/tv manufacturers started doing this, what choice do you have? No, the option is not "do not use cars/tv"
Supply & demand. If there is demand for dumb TVs and dumb cars, this supply will (eventually) be met. Vote with your wallet.
Also, do not forget the second hand market for cars. This one's huge. There's still TVs and cars available which are dumb. There's still laptops available without Intel ME.
> This is the situation we find ourselves with email (all email providers mark any other email as spam).
> If there is demand for dumb TVs and dumb cars, this supply will (eventually) be met.
I keep hearing that, I just never see it. There are a lot of things nobody wants which corporations push in unison because they want them. And that's not even accounting for the meddling of the marketing department, which does matter.
> I keep hearing that, I just never see it. There are a lot of things nobody wants which corporations push in unison because they want them. And that's not even accounting for the meddling of the marketing department, which does matter.
[In my reply I'll be mostly specific to TVs. Cars is -at least for me- a more complex topic due to AI which I don't want to argue against because I am reluctantly positive about this development (I do realise the privacy issues). Its also a lot higher in price than a TV, which makes the risk/reward higher.]
1) The smart TV is a relatively new phenomenon (to me, I'm in my 30s and I grew up with CRT monitors, I suppose for someone who's 15 it doesn't feel this way). I don't own a TV, but when I bought a TV for my mother back in 2010 it was a dumb TV. Its still being in use, and it was made smart via a Chromecast (but it can be made dumb). My point is: the old supply hasn't dried up yet. Dumb TVs are still in use.
2) Part of the supply is met via the second hand market. If you don't see that, you are not trying hard enough. Go to eBay, type in a brand of a car made in 90s or 00s or fill in ThinkPad T61 or fill in a type of an old TV and off you go.
3) We're also seeing a conversion from TV being less relevant, due to streaming and Internet. This is akin to radio replaced by audio streaming, or PC replaced by tablets and smartphones. It may very well be that people use a dedicated TV less. In other words, I argue that there's less demand for TVs. (Which is why TVs are made more 'useful' by making them smart.)
4) The dumb TV is already here. It has a better refresh rate, and low ms than a traditional dumb TV. This dumb TV is called a 'monitor'. This is what I actually use as my current TV (I lied when I said I didn't have a TV, but its technically an 7+ year old monitor with a TV module. Its 24", and we barely use it).
So in short conclusion, concerning the dumb TV:
1 & 2) The replacement is relatively new and the customer has to learn the + and - of the newer version. The old supply hasn't dried up.
3) Demand has shifted. Customer perceives a smart TV as more capable.
4) Other product -still being actively made- satisfies demand.
I have no reason to doubt that supply & demand doesn't work in this specific market. Furthermore, you might want to take a look at importing from Asia. There's a relatively new market with a large supply of options over there.
> Demand has shifted. Customer perceives a smart TV as more capable.
Also see "not accounting for the meddling of the marketing department" - not all things just "happen". And while you make good points about streaming (having to schedule yourself around broadcasts is a huge drawback, after all) TV getting "smarter" and them being the way they are are still not exactly the same thing.
Its not that TV is smarter; it had to catch up. SUN used to say the network is the computer. Everything is both nowadays.
The consumer/customer can use any device with internet (PC, laptop, tablet, phone) to watch a TV series a few hours (?) right after or even during broadcast. Those devices can also be used to watch YouTube and all the other streaming platforms whereas a traditional TV can't. I wouldn't assume malice. I suppose the thought was "wait, what. More functionality than TV? We can compete with that."
Except that these onboard 'computers' on TV are weak, and profit margins are apparently too low to increase that. Which means you end up with something similar as the mess of Android. Devices with firmware too expensive to maintain.
Like I said, I use an old monitor as TV. My personal belief is TV as we know it is dying. We're going to see a merge of monitor and TV soon (with monitor capable being a TV) and the elder will be able to watch TV the traditional way. But youth generally don't. This means funding of public broadcast TV like BBC in UK and NPO in NL will get cut. Its a downward spiral, already set in process long ago in 90s.
If you run your own mail server, it's hard to get email deliverability to the inboxes of people who use the Big 3 (Gmail, yahoo mail, Outlook.com). This makes using these privacy-invasive email services a much easier decision
> If there is demand for dumb TVs and dumb cars, this supply will (eventually) be met.
Such demand will never rise to substantial levels. The moment your solution to a problem requires the general public to (change their behavior/become educated about something), your solution is unworkable.
If the general public regularly changed their habits out of principle, Windows would have been displaced by Linux in the 90s and the banana and diamond industries would be dead or dying.
It doesn't work that way, and it's unrealistic to assume it ever can.
> If the general public regularly changed their habits out of principle, Windows would have been displaced by Linux in the 90s and the banana and diamond industries would be dead or dying.
My argument has never been that the general public at a whole changes something out of principle. Some of us may, most will not. Sadly you're right on that account.
My argument was that if there is a demand for a product this will (eventually) be met by supply.
I don't know anything about the banana industry.
I do know that Windows is from the former monopolist Microsoft. I was there when the Halloween documents got released into the wild.
The diamond industry is a former monopoly as well (De Beers). The diamond industry furthermore has the advantage of tradition. However according to [1] "Synthetic diamonds sold as jewelry typically sell for 15-20% less than natural equivalents, but the relative price is expected decline further as production economics improve." A-ha we got incentive right there: a price of 15-20% of the natural counterpart which is going to drop further over time! What makes you believe this competitor is irrelevant, unable to compete with natural diamonds? I see the exact opposite. So we have two incentives now: the principal, ideologic one (sadly usually doesn't fly; we agree there) and a money one. Diamonds lose their value the moment they're bought. There's no second hand market for them. It is a stupid investment. If you can save 80-85% on a stupid investment that seems like a pretty good incentive to me.
> It doesn't work that way, and it's unrealistic to assume it ever can.
If we're talking about monopolies, no, but those monopolies stay monopolies due to lack of government intervention and because the wheels of justice grind slowly. Microsoft eventually got what they deserved by courts, and they failed to compete with the successors of the PC which ran the 'children' of Linux and macOS (Android and iOS). Microsoft even had to change their business model, giving away Windows 10 and focusing on advertising instead.
And my point was that there never will be enough demand for such a product for it to be anything but a niche product sold to first worlders. And that goes double on commodities with few differentiating features like TVs.
