Oh wow, that’s actually a big deal. You should be proud of that!

And seriously, they go from Net Neutrality filing to racing at full speed to a bot garden cesspool. Ugh.

There’s a robust reddit advertising ecosystem that exists. While much of that starts with standard “buy an ad that doesn’t scream that its an ad” stuff, things like doing an AMA or engaging with users or trying to co-opt user content are all in the mix.

Mods who can approve posts from advertising accounts, block or remove criticism, and even block posts from competitors can gatekeep messaging could, if they were dickbags, stand to make a decent amount of money for it if all the communications comes from sidechannels. /r/hailcorportate always sot of found the line between astroturf advertising and genuine brand worship by idiots, and it’s intentionally messy so it’s hard to tell what’s what.

Even buying and selling of old accounts is a thing. Buying and selling of upvotes from bot accounts, etc. The whole platform is manipulated unless it’s a small niche sub.

See? And now you can wear that “former” as a badge of honor.

The mods under discussion are the ones that mod more than FIVE large communities. if those people haven’t figured out a way to make that a paying gig, then they’re doing it wrong.

We all presume that being the mod of several large reddit communities doesn’t include the possibility of sidehustle financial benefits.

Yet, humans are innovators of corruption! And I can only assume that any multi-mega-subreddit moderator has worked out something to make what is obviously a full time job worth their time.

That figure is assumed from people who connect a start TV to the internet. Once the TV is online, it’s collecting data non-stop, even when it’s “off” and regardless of what services used. Samsung doesn’t offer streaming services, so their value is derived easily from tracking what you’re watching even when it’s not streaming services, like live TV, cable, etc. to sell it themselves, regardless of what other apps are installed. Since they’re all typically Android-based apps, the typical other permissions apply, like Amazon Prime being able to see what you have installed as well. But as the TV maker can take screenshots or see info about what you watch over an HDMI port, that’s of huge value to them over years of time.

Oh no, this picture is from 1998, those Macs were new. That woman was rocking the Agent Scully look for a reason.

Came here to say “Wait, aren’t we on like Dance Dance Revolution 20?” DDR4 had some bangers, but shouldn’t affect the solar industry.

Agreed. Why should I have the “least (presumed) competence” when I’m using one of the 2 things on here that works every single day?

It’s hit or miss for me with my VPN, but between using an Invidious instance, Freetube, DDG video search, and cycling VPN locations, I’m never, ever logged in to YT.

And yes, Google/YT wants to track everything. Third party doctrine means that governments will pay them for this data rather than run their own surveillance systems. Anything that you’ve watched that can be used against you will be if it suits someone else.

AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh, ok, say no more. Samsung used to be much easier to work around and they’re really joining the “lock it down!” club lately.

I used to run trainings on personal cybersecurity and explaining to people how much their data is worth. I’ve been paid to study this.

So, specific data about what you’re worth to a company is proprietary. I can’t find a link to a PWC or McKinsey report, but IoT device data typically sells for a range that’s an estimate of cost per user per year. On the upper end, I’ve seen estimates of up to $50 per user per year. Low end is $1. So if the assumed lifetime of the TV is 4 years and a “household” is 2 adults and 2 kids, you end up at ($50x2 and $25 x 2)= $150 x 4 years = $600. So if Samsung sudsidizes the cost of a smart TV by $400, they’re coming out ahead $200 on average, just on the subsidy. That’s the kind of math going on for TV sales. Again, that’s proprietary data, so short of trying to track down reports I saw years ago, all I can explain is that data monetization is a well-known cornerstone of business. Here’s a quote for you about companies needing to know the value:

The exact same dataset, when sold to a financial services company, was being used to make multimillion-dollar decisions, so the data aggregator could charge $100,000. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/what-data-wrapping-and-how-does-it-make-products-better

That’s for companies operating legally and in the clear. What’s crazy is that our data is treated sort of like student loan debt with them, because it’s seen by them as debt we owe to the company and paid back over the life of the device. For criminals, it’s pennies-on-the-dollar fire sales because nothing is guaranteed to work. So the data needed to steal your identity as a single line on a spreadsheet might only be $20 a person because the list of 10,000 records might only contain 200 winners. So you buy a $200,000 spreadsheet and hope to commit at least $1,000 per successful hit to come out ahead. which is a fairly low bar for fraud. Then the whole list is burned and you start over.

You may want to re-evaluate how you’re installing non-Play apps. I use F-droid all the time and never had anything even approach “inconvenient.”

Plus, Hanna Montana Linux doesn’t run on anything modern. Doesn’t everyone know that?

Plus, where is this for the Spice Girls? UK, you’re FAILING.

lol, ok.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/nov/smart-tv-tracking-raises-privacy-concerns

https://www.reddit.com/r/samsung/comments/1kpulqw/samsung_smart_tvs_privacy_nightmare_massive/

https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features-a4840102036/

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1fsri2c/my_wakeup_call_how_i_discovered_my_smart_tv_was/

https://www.securityweek.com/smart-tv-surveillance-how-samsung-and-lgs-acr-technology-tracks-what-you-watch/

Oh my sweet summer child. The privacy community is all over this and any economics course will explain how we got here.

Anyone making equipment needs to come in just below competitors in terms of price. How? By using telemetry and data collection to sell for advertising. This is seen as a subsidy to make the equipment more competitive to get it in more homes for long-term rent-seeking for income lasting years from every user. Same as with any smart appliance. The TV, connected to the internet, monitors what you watch even when you’ve connected by HDMI.

Can you just not connect the TV? Absolutely, yes. That’s how low the bar is, that simply not giving the TV a connection and using 1 extra device in between is all it takes to come out ahead. That’s a gamble worth it to Samsung. I have a Samsung TV, and that’s all I need to do to come out ahead. But many, many people think the TV needs to do it all and just give it a data connection.

The cost of that TV is heavily subsidized on the expectation that you connect it to the internet and it feeds Samsung data on you.

This is the key point - these have to be clear signals in the same room.

That’s what Google wants, because people gave up on Jailbreaking iPhones because the loss of features wasn’t worth it on the other side. Google probably doesn’t love that their flagship is the best model for use with custom ROMs, plus they’re also trying to lock out Xiomi as well for what that’s worth.

While giving up is an option, someone somewhere needs to coordinate this entire OSS ecosystem to focus on singular projects. I would love to see a privacy and FOSS non-profit do exactly this.

I’m in the same exact boat.

At some point when Google kills custom ROMs, everyone working on customs ROMs won’t have anywhere else to go other than a Linux phone.