Today I’m donating my streaming sticks. I got a ONN brand 2k one I bought for 15 and I got an Amazon Firestick 4K I got for $3 from a thrift store because they didn’t know what it was.

And I love the concept of stream sticks, I really do. Too fucking bad that corporate interests got in the way and now everything has to have a bundle of ads at every damn turn. Not even some of the things I’m subscribed to is free from ads because this is the future apparently, we’re here.

Shame because I don’t want to let these go and even if I were to subscribe to Netflix’s ad-free subscription, that’s only one source. Why do that when I can just grab a long HDMI cable, plug it into my desktop and to my TV and I can watch everything that’s there, without ads because of the extensions I use to block ads.

  • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
    42·
    1 month ago

    My gripe is with the androidTV/roku/etc being built into the TV. Just give me a big monitor that can switch inputs, that’s it. I install TVs for work and I can’t count the amount of times the TV is just trashed because the software is screwed up and you aren’t even able to switch it to HDMI1 and carry on like it doesn’t exist. It’s hot garbage, keep that shit on little HDMI sticks that you can throw away without throwing away the whole TV. Seriously, your TVs life gets cut in half if you have a whole OS on it. Bring back dumb firmware.

    • lungdart@lemmy.ca
      252·
      1 month ago

      Dumb TVs exist, and they’re 5x the price of smart TVs.

      Ads and data mining subsidizes the hardware cost. If you want cheap TVs you get spyware and ads.

      • Mayor Poopington@lemmy.worldEnglish
        42·
        1 month ago

        A smart TV is a dumb TV when it doesn’t have an internet connection. I won’t put mine on the wifi and do everything through Chromecast or Xbox.

        • AngryRobot@lemmy.world
          2·
          1 month ago

          I know OP calls out an ONN streaming stick, bu5 I just got one of their 4k Pro models, and I really like it. It’s a pure Google TV experience with no additional sds.

    • Turd Ferg
      12·
      1 month ago

      Dont forget Roku’s patent for a way to show you ads over anything you plug into the hdmi.