There gets to be a certain point where we simply have to accept that while yes, technically one could simply not own a TV (increasingly difficult to find a DumbTV as opposed to a SmartTV with always-on microphone), any IOT things, a smartphone, etc etc, we cannot reasonably expect someone to not do this. Notably the smartphone, which of the entire list of probably the worst offender, second only to the TV perhaps because of the ick/literally-1984 factor of your TV listening to you.
We practically can't expect people to do without a smartphone. It's how people pay bills, bank, access weather information, etc. And since it's the most-used path, it's also the best-maintained path. Non-smartphone alternatives have already rotted. Have you tried calling into half of those bills you pay via QR code instead of just scanning the code? Try it sometime.
Instead of telling people to just go live on a mountain monastery in Tibet, we could instead simply eat our cake AND have it by just regulating this stuff. Pass privacy laws. Fine people who break them. Samsung, Google, etc will comply rather than not continue to bathe in our ad revenue.
It's not about telling people to live outside society but instead to be more mindful of how they engage with it. One can live in a city and not own a smart TV, nor a smartphone, nor any IOT devices, etc., but that's not the point I'm making. One can also just choose different devices. Once someone gets to the point that they refuse to buy the privacy-disrespecting device it's not much of a stretch to start looking for a privacy-respecting device.
> but instead to be more mindful of how they engage with it.
This is like the recycling debate all over again. Fundamentally we agree with you; littering is bad, the diminishing of privacy is bad, and none of us should feel hopeless about a situation we are capable of changing.
But consider the average person, not me or you or the hackers. Someone who opts for convenience, not "mindful engagement" for the slightest of interactions with the world. They do not care. Fundamentally they cannot be made to care, even if we show them posters of the Earth burning or make them hear about the Snowden leaks. They consider themselves to be powerless, and will not consider an alternative unless it is as convenient as what they're addicted to now. They're not going to buy respectful TVs because they're not the cheap ones. They're not going to buy respectful phones because it doesn't have the little Apple logo on the back that their friends love so much. The average person literally cannot be made to care unless we make privacy-respecting software easier to use than spyware.
> But consider the average person, not me or you or the hackers.
Forget the average person - even as a technically adept person who has tried to "mindfully engage" with technology and minimize his use of it as much as is reasonably possible, the way our societies in the west are structured are making it increasingly difficult to participate in the world without plugging yourself into the surveillance borg. Examples abound even in this thread - QR codes to order food; needing to ask concierge to call you a Lyft because taxis are nonexistent in the neighbourhood and you aren't carrying a smartphone.
There is so much friction involved in living life with minimal technology that you are placing yourself at a significant disadvantage and living your life less efficiently than others by needing to make compromises or forego certain amenities entirely. While it is possible to live life like this and eschew such creature comforts, it becomes exhausting after several years of doing so, and there is no indication that the tides will turn or the winds will begin blowing in the other direction. You can continue swimming upstream for naught and at great disadvantage to yourself, but it will not change the direction of the current. If anything, the pandemic and work-from-home has only accelerated the trend, with the invasion of Internet-connected surveillance devices into one's private quarters now made mandatory in order to participate in the workforce.
> the way our societies in the west are structured are making it increasingly difficult to participate in the world without plugging yourself into the surveillance borg. Examples abound even in this thread -
> needing to ask concierge to call you a Lyft
Considering this was also necessary before smartphones existed, I'm not sure why it's supposed to be a problem now.
Because there often isn't a concierge any longer and there may not be a reliable local taxi company. Without disagreeing that you can work around the lack of a smartphone, it's increasingly difficult in a lot of circumstances.
> unless we make privacy-respecting software easier to use than spyware
This point is key.
I don't use an Android instead of a Pinephone because I don't care. I use an Android because Pinephone sucks right now, and I can't be hacking on the device I need to rely on to schedule my bank payments and call the emergency services if I fall in a ravine. That device has to be five-nines trustworthy.
The solution is going to have to be make Pinephone suck less. That's the only way to mass adoption and actually changing the landscape.
Music piracy didn't get its back broken by a sudden global attack of conscience. It got its back broken by iTunes making it more convenient to get music-to-portable-device than running a torrent server.
> Music piracy didn't get its back broken by a sudden global attack of conscience. It got its back broken by iTunes making it more convenient to get music-to-portable-device than running a torrent server.
Huh? Music piracy is easier and better now than it ever has been. Every music label releases all their music, officially and for free, on YouTube. You can just download it directly from the official source.
It's like Napster, if every music publisher had maintained an official account offering every song they owned, and paid commercial services to ensure that their Napster presence was up to date.
Most people just subscribe to a music streaming service because... convenience. An analyst friend of mine argued that Napster succeeded because convenience rather than free. I disagreed at the time. I think I was mostly wrong.
The streaming service still doesn't have a convenience advantage. It has a discovery advantage. Listening to your own local music can never show you a song you weren't previously familiar with.
Mostly it does for me. I can put on some playlist that is generally satisfying enough. If I cared to put the effort into curating more playlists and spending the money on songs that I like that I'm missing I'd probably actually save money. I'm mostly not looking to discover hot new artists. Honestly, I wouldn't miss the lack of streaming much if it went away.
> One can live in a city and not own a smart TV, nor a smartphone
I believe parent's point is: no, one cannot. One cannot live in a (modern Western urban) society and not have a smartphone.
The people who do are now living in a different society, where, among other things:
- they have to plan to stop at a bank to take out physical cash
- they have to schedule their days in an entirely different method from their peers with smartphones
- they are less connected to opportunities and access to government and private services because those services come via smart devices and assume smart device ownership
Not to put too fine a point on it: there are restaurants that give you a QR code instead of a paper menu now. Are you and I living in the same society if I can order food there and you can't?
Perhaps we are just quibbling on definitions if we're arguing about whether being homeless counts as living in the same society as those with a permanent address.
The meta point is: government regulates housing because it's something "everybody" (modulo outliers) does: live in a house. If "everybody" (modulo outliers) owns a smartphone and smartphone ownership is assumed for full societal participation... We probably need to regulate it.
It's really not that hard to have a smart TV and simply not connect it to your network. They'll beg to connect, but I haven't seen one that will refuse to function without an internet connection.
Our brand-new LG OLED doesn’t even beg. It asked at setup time, I selected “not in your marketing drone’s wildest dreams”, it said “cool, bro”, and hasn’t bothered us in the last two weeks.
We don’t even see the TV’s home screen. Just power on the Xbox/Apple TV/whatever and HDMI CEC turns everything on and sets inputs.
I see nothing in that article that supports your claim, other than LG will sniff your network if you explicitly give it a network connection. Additionally, the LG TV has to go through an AV receiver and the Apple TV before it finds an Ethernet port. There is no doing it “sneakily” if the other devices don’t cooperate, and they don’t. On top of everything else, there is no traffic on my network that gives me cause for concern, I looked. On top of all that, think about the cost of implementing this versus the odds of there being a device on the other end of that HDMI cable that supports such functionality (very low).
In the end, it would appear that you are mixing a little bit of truth with a whole lot of urban legend.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to say “just don’t have internet connected devices at all” in 2024. This falls too far into “caveat emptor” territory for my tastes. We all need to be informed and responsible but the burden of creating a totally disconnected-from-the-internet house (except for your core devices like phones/laptops) is actually pretty substantial and gets harder every year. Hell it’s becoming a problem with cars.
I worry the normalization of Internet-connectedness in "smart devices" in the eyes of the public will lead to regulation of these devices for "privacy reasons" while offering no real privacy guarantees.
I think the drive for "privacy respect" in devices should really be an effort to push manufacturers toward making devices that work without Internet-connectivity. I think everybody technical who cares about privacy should beat this drum to all their friends, family, etc, to vote with their wallets.
Standalone devices make a stronger privacy guarantee than the alternative.
"Connected" devices that offer "privacy" rely on the compliance of the companies who run the servers for the devices. It also means they can't get breached, either.
It time we revisit "basic human rights" and emphasize privacy as part of those, and revamp laws to reflect that. Companies can still have ads and send out fliers in the mail. They don't need to know every move we make, website we visit, what we buy, etc. They have no right to that and it causes a lot of damage to society and mental health while only rewarding the company and no one else.
You have a reasonable right to privacy, e.g., in your home.