This afternoon, I was updating the streaming apps on my 2020 LG CX OLED TV, something I do from time to time, but today was different. Out of nowhere, I saw (and heard) an ad for Ace Hardware start playing in the lower-left corner. It autoplayed with sound without any action on my part.
Now I’m fully aware that it’s not unusual to see ads placed around a TV’s home screen or main menu. LG, Samsung, Roku, Vizio, and others are all in on this game. We live in an era when smart TVs can automatically recognize what you’re watching, and TV makers are building nice ad businesses for themselves with all of the data that gets funneled in.
But this felt pretty egregious even by today’s standards. A random, full-on commercial just popping up in LG’s app store? Is there no escape from this stuff? We’re just going to cram ads into every corner of a TV’s software, huh? Imagine if an autoplay ad started up while you were updating the apps on your smartphone.
People want cheap TVs, so people get cheap TVs – warts and all. Someone should set up a website and list TVs that are “safe to buy” and do not contain or display any ads. Of course, this still doesn’t solve the issue of “smart” TVs being security nightmares, but it’d be a step.
These are not “cheap” TVs. “2020 LG CX OLED TV” is cited $1,499 and up.
This is LG trying to double-dip into customers’ pockets. If I buy a “sponsored” Kindle for example, I expect ads on the lockscreen. That is part of the deal. However if I buy a premium device, and see ads, then it becomes a deal breaker.
However deals have been known to be broken for a long time.
Originally Cable TV channels were supposed to be paid by subscriber revenue. Now all of them have ads, and only a few “premium” ones (like HBO) are ad free.
Even Netflix touted adding ads in their service:
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/01/09/new-survey-suggests-netflix-really-should-consider.aspx
That’s a lot of money, but it’s still cheap if you look at how much OLED TVs like that cost only a few years ago. This is how they bring down that cost way, way faster than they would otherwise.
I did not look at the prices that way For me $1,500 is a lot for a TV. However even if that is the low end of OLEDs, it is still anti-consumer to do a bait-and-switch and start showing ads after the device is long sold.
Sure, I mean, the saving’s gotta be nearly $50 for a 2000-dollar TV…
Standard ads on AdSense services seem to cost about $25 per 1000 views. How long does it take to view 1000 ads if they pop up randomly on some menus etc? I feel this is a geenrous overestimate but let’s say five ads per day. So the ad revenue is maybe $40 per yer per unit and even then we have to subtract recurring costs and taxes and whatnots.
We could argue that you buy the TV for ten years and view ads worth of a few hundred dollars. But that’s bullshit. TV manufacturers cannot give you a free loan for ten years, no, they need to bring back the money in the span of a few months, so I presume putting ads on the menus will lower the retail price for maybe $20 if lucky.
You’re willing to sell your soul very cheap.
I’m also aware that all this works by pooling the revenue and spreading it to all of their sales units. So having ads in lower-tier units probably lowers the price for more premium units without ads as well.
Yeah, …that’s not a thing. OLED pricing has come down because of maturing technology, streamlined manufacturing, market competition (especially with matured less expensive alternatives), and the law of supply & demand. They’re the same things that drive/drove the other panel technologies down that became popular. Advertising like this is not about lowering cost to customers, it’s about adding revenue and widening margins. Also, OLED pricing is going to continue to drop and it has nothing to do with ads. It’s because Chinese production is scaling up and achieving higher yields. China is going to conquer OLED supply the same way it did with LCD, and the end result is big drops in pricing for consumers.
In 2015, manufacturing costs for a 55″ OLED panel were said to be around $1300.
In 2021, it is more like $300.
In 2015, they retail with a much larger margin because they are expensive and can’t produce or sell many.
In 2021, they retail with a smaller margin, because they can hit price points where the volume of sales is much larger.
The amount they could afford to shave off by including adverts is about $20 – irrelevant when you are talking of a $1500+ device.
Adverts are completely insignificant when it comes to the rate and extent that prices have fallen – that’s down to manufacturing costs and production capacity. It’s just an extra revenue stream, because they can.
I’ll be pissed if I see any more ads than I already do. Usually it is something dumb that only pops up in the corner talking about some service I don’t care about. And only on the menu. If I saw one during streaming or something, I would disconnect it from the internet.
All networks should be running a pi-hole or similar service next DNS etc). Removing the intrusive ads through DNS filtering works well.
This is why, although I have a Chromecast, I would never buy a Smart TV. If the Chromecast bothers you you can just unplug it and still watch TV.
And Sukru is right, $1500 is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Even if you live in a mansion and can afford a $1500 TV in every room, you can still get a perfectly serviceable one for $200.
It is not a question about cheap or expensive. I want to have the choice. I’d be happy to pay a few (hundred) bucks more if I do not get any ads any more. Simply there is no offer.
Even the paid Amazone Prime (both stick plus subscription) pollutes my TV with advertisement.
DeepThought,
Streaming services hooked us with ad-free, and customers were willing to pay for them. It was a much better experience than the ad infested cable services. But now that customers are accustomed to these ad-free services and may have even “cut the cord” for them, these streaming services are increasingly going to look towards selling ads, those who don’t are at an economic disadvantage. And as with virtually all advertising before I think consumers are going to end up extremely annoyed but defeated by ads in paid streaming services.
Hypothetically you could have a device that blocks unwanted content. However even tivo, which once existed to skip/ff unwanted ads, is forcing it’s own ads.
https://sea.pcmag.com/news/34154/tivo-starts-showing-ads-before-dvr-recordings
You can’t win against the damn advertisers, they just infest everything. And tivo subscriptions aren’t cheap either.
We *could* win against the advertisers, by not buying their stuff or anything with ads in it. Don’t pay for cable. Don’t pay for Netflix. Don’t buy these TVs or other ad-infested devices. Even blocking the ads is a second-best option, since you’re still buying the crap in the first place. But… the average person would rather bitch about ads and keep the convenience than make the sacrifices it will take to dethrone these companies.
darknexus,
It doesn’t matter to advertisers which services we use, they find ways to inject themselves everywhere and service providers will cave because they want the advertising money. It’s the same way with virtually every medium whether radio, television, news papers, internet, etc. Even if you stick with a basic tv, it’s completely naive to think that’s a win. Advertisers are incessant and these days we’re being bombarded with 2X more radio and television ads compared to 50 years ago. News papers and magazines are the same. When I went to the movies as a kid, we’d see previews for other movies but never normal product ads. Going to the movies today is not only tainted by 500% price inflation, but additionally 15 minutes of commercials played when the movie is supposed to have started. When I take a train to the city, not only do the cost of tickets keep rocketting, now we’re treated to ads plastered on all the walls. Even my damned landline telephone is getting abused by advertisers. There’s no getting away from it regardless of the choices you make short of becoming a hermit. While the choice of living under a rock may be gaining some appeal, it’s kind of an acceptance that advertisers have won and we’re forced to give up.
When it comes to advertising specifically, you aren’t the consumer, you are the product. This is why a lot of “vote with your feet” strategies don’t lead to real change. You’re hatred of ads doesn’t really have that much impact on the business model. Supply and demand dictates that as you try to cut off the supply of consumer attention, the higher the financial reward will be for companies that succeed at injecting more ads into our lives.
Most certainly these ads are linked with data collection and resold to one of the companies running big tracking programmes (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft). As sj87 said, there is not much value in it for LG, but they could get a juicy paycheck from others.
Ads with tracking are far more dangerous than ads we grew up with (analog TV, radio, newspapers) but people still only focus on the annoyance aspect of them. Especially if collected data are later connected with contents of our emails, browsing/call history, contacts, files, card purchases, medical data and so on.
I don’t think Google buys watch history (or sells it, but don’t quote me on that), and I don’t think the others (Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) would do either. They all work with in house data, and sometimes limited sharing. If you think about the business model, this never makes sense.
But there are third party brokers that specialize on those. For example, when the cashier asks your zip code, they can uniquely identify you with very high probability: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2013/06/19/theres-a-billion-reasons-not-to-give-stores-your-zip-code-ever/?sh=43451e8f786f, And there are other combinations of data that can also be identifiers https://www.americanscientist.org/article/uniquely-me
sukru,
I don’t think it’s beneath google to track people’s watching habits. After learning that google was buying up peoples credit card purchase history, I won’t give them the benefit of doubt anymore. IMHO google monitoring transactions & activities they aren’t even a party to really crosses the line.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/google-tracking-credit-card-data-advertisers
Alfman,
I actually know about that project. My friend worked on the privacy side. However my concern was: “we are having difficulty explaining the algorithm to techies, how are we going to explain to regular people”?
Basically, the method joins large datasets without sharing any individual record. So that you can ask queries like “what is the average spending on a particular ad”, without being able to decipher any individual user’s purchase history.
But of course media ran with it in a very bad way.
If you are interested the code is available here:
https://github.com/Google/private-join-and-compute
And one rare positive media coverage:
https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/19/googles-private-join-and-compute-gives-companies-data-insights-while-preserving-privacy/
(I still don’t understand all the details of that algorithm).
sukru,
I know google’s trying to use it as a means of convincing how effective their google ads are for brick and mortar stores. But to me as a consumer that’s irrelevant. The ethical line is crossed the moment our credit card transactions are sold to google without explicit opt-in permission. I think people are right to be furious about it, but in practice most people aren’t even aware that google has access to 70% of US credit card transactions.
Alfman,
No, once again the “transactions” are not sold. They never cross the bank boundary with the algorithm.
That was the whole point.
sukru,
The credit card terms and conditions explicitly permits it. This is where a lot of direct mail marketers gets their data sets from and I’m pretty sure google gets the same data. By law, consumers have to be allowed to opt out, but most aren’t aware it’s happening.
I’m aware of what algorithms can theoretically do, but linking to privacy research does not imply that is actually being done. For all I know google could be getting the raw data and anonymizing the data itself for advertisers. You are obviously more connected to google than anyone else here. I respect you a lot, but I don’t think the concerns can be adequately addressed with a blanket dismissal. We need more context.
Do you have any documented evidence showing that all the data google gets for credit card transactions is 1) not personally identifiable and 2) is only in aggregate form?
Has google itself ever officially rebutted the media reports? (If yes, where?)
Alfman,
Why else would Google work on a multi-year project that allows joining datasets without getting the raw data?
From Verge’s report:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17801880/google-mastercard-data-online-ads-offline-purchase-history-privacy
“Before we launched this beta product last year, we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users’ personally identifiable information. We do not have access to any personal information from our partners’ credit and debit cards, nor do we share any personal information with our partners. Google users can opt-out with their Web and App Activity controls, at any time.”
Alfman,
Admittedly information on this is very scarce. I also found a similar description from VISA:
https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/global/run-your-business/documents/visa-media-measurement-sales-sheet.pdf
“All Visa measurement reporting is based on aggregated and anonymized spend data and
campaign performance is measured in a process designed to protect confidentiality.
“
Alfman,
One final note: I don’t dispute that credit card information is for sale. Nor I can claim to know everything or vouch for everyone.
sukru,
The verge links to bloomberg, which has more information…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-and-mastercard-cut-a-secret-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales
I think a lot of the conflicting information comes from the fact that multiple parties are involved in different types of data exchanges and none paint a complete picture. Google has data from credit card companies, the user’s own device and accounts including location history, and they’re getting some information from the advertiser/merchants themselves (email is mentioned explicitly, but who knows what else).
Mastercard’s statement:
I think visa and mastercard statements have kernels of truth, but it’s not painting the whole story either. When mastercard says they don’t share itemized purchases, we know that’s true because the credit card transactions don’t contain this level of information in the first place, Their statement “No individual transaction or personal data is provided”. is carefully worded to suggest anonymity, but does not imply it. They could aggregate a user’s transactions as a batch and then use surrogate keys rather than “personal data” and the statement would still technically be true.
The problem with google’s position is that if the data collection were truly anonymous then the service google is selling to advertisers would be non-viable, so one of these must be true: google is exaggerating it’s capabilities to advertisers, or it is exaggerating end user anonymity. Maybe some of both.
I feel that we (the public) should be entitled to specifics about how our data is used before letting companies off the hook. There’s far too much happening in secret behind our backs. The notion that we should trust them, just because, does little to convince me.
sukru,
Yes, I appreciate that you can’t have all the answers. And I hope you’re not too offended by my criticism of google, haha. I enjoy our discussions, you’re an easygoing strait forward guy. As far as I’m concerned, google’s lucky to have you.
Alfman,
You are right. PR teams might have resolved all the doubts by issuing better and clearer statements.
On the other hand, I am definitely not good at PR either, just an engineer enjoying technical things.
The last OS update on my LG TV turned on a new setting that displayed the home screen as an overlay whenever you powered on the device. I figured this was the first step before displaying ads whenever possible, but this “feature” is currently something you can disable.
If ads start showing up on my screen it’ll prompt me to finally install a Pi Hole, I guess.
Could you tell where this “feature” can be disabled? It’s super annoying.
What I’ve done is to block the TV in my firewall from connecting to the internet, while still being reachable on the local network. This means I can use screen mirroring and control it from Home Assistant, but not having my viewing habits recorded or getting ads. Local playback from my server should also work, although I use my Shield and Apple TV for that.
Don’t connect your “smart” TV to the internet. My old Nexus Player is better than any of the “smart” TV interfaces LG and Samsung are peddling, and (here is the important bit) you do risk death-by-internal overheating as much when you are not using the “smart” functionality of your TV, all you are burning out is a cheap set-top box like the Nexus Player instead. If you are the kind of person that keeps TVs for 10+ years, that last bit is equally important as not seeing ads.
I don’t want a “smart” TV. Nothing “smart” about them. Just loaded with garbage, and spying on you. Just want a good display and sound. The rest I’ll add if I want.
I have a 10 year old “smart garbage” TV from Samsung, I can’t remember the last time I acessed the “smart garbage” area, probably 3 or 4 years ago. Just useless garbage. And the last time I did was just for the video player. Even that was crap.
Arawn,
The “I don’t want a smart TV” position isn’t productive because the smart TV is here to stay whether we personally want it or not. “Dumb TVs” are getting marginalized and the market will eventually phase them out and one way or another. Eventually we’ll all end up with smart TVs because that is all manufacturers are going to sell. For this reason I really think it’s strategically wiser for us as consumers to take a bigger role steering the ship for where we want smart tvs to go. Because if we just protest their existence, there’s no question that’s a battle we are ultimately going to loose.
The truth is smart TVs can bring lots of consumer benefits, the problem is if we don’t convince people everywhere to fight the right battles, we are going to end up with IOSization of televisions where everything we do is strictly controlled by the manufacturer and content providers will be forced to pay large noncompetitive fees just to access consumers. At least today the smart TV market is relatively new and we’re benefiting from some competition, but if we’ve learned anything about mature capitalistic markets it’s that market consolidation is on the horizon. And unless we take actions to ensure that smart TVs have open standards and APIs (akin to HTML5 for the internet), we will end up in a future where the worst kind of smart tv wins, one that restricts blocks independent innovation, owners, imposes fees and censorship.
Don’t connect the “smart” TV to the internet, and it’s a “dumb” TV.
kurkosdr,
You might feel better about attaching a dumb tv to another smart box, but this “yay, my TV connects via a dongle.” seems to be a very shallow win at best. Instead, I’d love to see us unite in fighting for meaningfully open smart TV standards. Many people are just like you and have this mentality that we need to fight smart tvs altogether. The fact is that by doing this, you and others are effectively throwing away your votes on what smart tvs should become, which is a dangerous gamble. In time we’re going to see “smart tv” and “smart tv dongle” become completely redundant and merge as one and the same.
I have an LG CX I picked up last Thanksgiving. I’ve seen a total of zero ads. Then again, I never connected it to the internet and I don’t use any of the apps. Also, I have never seen proof that the ad revenue they make from their tv’s is in any way subsidizing the price of the tv’s. If someone has actual proof that’s what’s happening, I’d love to see it. Otherwise, the ad infestation is just another way to squeeze more money out of people without providing them anything in return as far as I’m concerned. And NO, targeted advertising is not doing the victim of it any favors.
I wonder how many of those devices are phoning home with entire channel view history .
LG apps are very inconsistent in quality. I now use a Roku, but still see ads every time I turn on my LG TV. I’m considering resetting it and using it as just a dumb TV. It’s too annoying as it stands now. All I need to do is stop being lazy about it and turn off the “smart” features entirely, and never connect it to the Internet.
I know everyone here hates advertisements, and I get why. But one thing I think is being overlooked: continued development of the platforms. I have a LG tv the first one with webos! But Hulu stopped updating their app. And netflix is dog slow now after being forced to update the app a few times. I think Hulu and Netflix understand if I can’t use their apps anymore I’ll find some other way to watch what I want. LG is the one thats getting cut out here. An average consumer would look at it and say, this tv sucks now. ( at least the smart features). But LG has no incentive to have anyone continue to use its apps. It doesn’t make a dime. So there is no effort to update the webos operating system to enable the features the app devs need for modern response applications. But, if there was ad revenue, well then there would be a reason to continue updating the os and keeping app developers happy on the platform.
I think you’re forgetting one huge consideration… Nobody needs apps running on a tv to begin with. There are several other (cheap) ways to stream content or run apps with the display being just a display. TV’s that run apps is solving a problem that doesn’t exist for the user, and is nothing more than a way to add a recurring revenue stream to a one-time purchase
Let’s not forget, there has been huge outcry over tv’s collecting data on users, not just their viewing habits but well beyond that such as what types of other devices are connected to their networks. People got along just fine before this garbage model found its way onto tv’s. In fact, the internet is the only place I see anyone, like yourself, trying to justify this crap. I have yet to have a single person in real life tell me they like it.
friedchicken,
This is a prevalent view, but I think we need to address the inconsistencies with the reasoning.
For many typical end users, getting rid of external boxes is a benefit and not a con. Regardless of your preference though, external boxes are not going to solve the tracking nor invasive advertising, it’s just exchanging one culprit for another. Whether it’s your TV or cable box, roku, tivo, firestick, etc these anti-features are a problem for everyone. In the long run, once the market consolidates, having an external box with a dumb TV is going to be a mostly superficial choice that doesn’t provide materially distinct freedom.
If we push open standards for smart TVs like HTML5 is for the internet. IMHO this is the best path for freedom in the future.
There’s convenience in having a tv that runs apps, However, there’s an inconvenience for the intrusiveness the advertising spam brings, and the lack/disregard of your privacy. The desire to get rid of external boxes was primarily about getting rid of the monopoly, or sense of it, providers had over content. It wasn’t actually about the external box itself – that was just an added bonus. The popular trend was `cutting the cord`, not `getting rid of the box`. Not to mention boxes these days are powerful & tiny. There are several options that are small enough to easily fit behind a wall-mounted tv unless it’s one of those fancy new LG flush-mount tvs.
In addition, whether or not you’re trading one culprit for another depends entirely on what setup you go with and how it’s configured (assuming you selected one that’s configurable). There are more legitimate options than people realize and there are alternative apps that provide the same access of “official” apps without the baked in spying. So, there is no inconsistency. If you want a setup that doesn’t spy on you, you can have one. It’s certainly not a foregone conclusion that the ad spam and spying is unavoidable. People do not have to be submissive to this kind of crap if they don’t want to. It’s bizarre anyone would think a setup that allows you to stay in control would be superficial in any way or doesn’t provide you any distinct freedom. To think that sounds like a lack of doing the homework I guess.
I do agree that it would be nice to have open standards for “smart” tvs. But, let’s be honest here. That’s not going to happen. We don’t live in a society that values what’s best for the user or consumer. It’s all about the benjamins and anything that will disrupt profit is a no-go, It’s a fight worth having only in that we shouldn’t roll over and make it easy for them to abuse us.
friedchicken,
I concur these are intrusive, however these are not solved by using an external box.
For now. But taking clues from history this is only temporary. We should anticipate that the market will ultimately consolidate into an oligopoly or even duopoly when it matures. Those at the top strong arm both consumers and content providers regardless of the box you are using.
But that’s what I’m saying, people who do their homework should be supportive of interoperable open smart TV standards (again something like HTML). These could be vendor neutral and let owners control what content and services they use without intervention from the manufacturer. The thing is, this needs to take place now while competition is still relevant and standards can help bring in new consumers. Once the market matures and consolidates, it will be too late and corporations will only increase vendor locking.
I agree, most consumers can’t see very far head. But don’t you see the irony? Those vocally rejecting smart TVs outright are throwing away their vote rather than calling for open standards that would make smart tvs (including external smart boxes) much better for everyone. We’re still at early stages, but 10-20 years into the future and it will be a missed opportunity to be on a better open path.
I love my LG. I ruthlessly never agreed to terms and conditions so I never get adds. Thank you EU privacy law. I generate all content via an Apple TV (and a Dreamcast), so the LG TV stays dumb as a brick.
Iapx432,
I’m a bit surprised it’s not a click-wrap agreement like most other things. That’s very interesting. But if you don’t hook it up to the network I don’t imagine it would show ads that way either.
In the beginning, apple tried to focus on user experience with no ads, but this is changing. In the long run, apple and its streaming partners are succumbing to ads to enrich themselves. They’re not going to turn down advertising money, especially when everyone else is doing it.
https://tidbits.com/2020/01/16/why-is-the-apple-tv-constantly-advertising-at-us/
https://www.quora.com/How-can-you-skip-YouTube-ads-on-the-new-Apple-TV
For better or worse, ads are what pay for free services, but it really sucks that so many paid products & services are also going the advertising route too. Ads are going to become as normal on streaming services as they are on cable TV