I have a Roku TV right now. Most of the ads aren't too bad compared to the Fire tv, but you still get the obnoxious ones that take over the top third of the screen... BUT it's probably the least aggressive of the ads I've seen from different devices, so...

I don't have an iPhone, or any other Apple devices aside from the two TV boxes, unfortunately. This house is a purely Linux/Android house lol That said, I definitely appreciate all this info, and may go digging for an android alternative, so this gives me an idea of what direction I can go in!

Awesome! Thank you for this! I only have a basic understanding of how IPTV even works, so the explanation even on its own is useful AF and gives me some avenues

Awesome suggestion! Only issue is... The gen 3 doesn't have any app store or way (that I know of) of downloading anything new to the device. It's kinda gotta go through some hacky method like hijacking existing apps on the system :/

Edit: unless you're referring to something like the other guy that mentioned jellyfin is talking about? (Sorry, I just woke up, I'm kinda stupid rn lol)

Yeah, there's definitely ways of tracking people even today. I just don't really see it working at scale without the customer actively doing something to "opt in" to that kind of tracking system, like loyalty cards, connecting to the wifi, etc. Mind you, I'm just some nerd, so I could be wrong/missing something, but yeah lol

I definitely get what you're saying, and in any other context, I'd definitely agree. I just can't quite see it working without some sort of identifying thing, like a loyalty card or some intense customer tracking (and we all know how that went with the Amazon Go stores). Mainly because there's not a good way to identify a specific item taken from a shelf full of the item, given UPCs are the same for all units of a product so it'd have to be done by cards or tracking.

I could be wrong, but given the current state of tech, I don't really see it working in a large, busy store like a Walmart or Canadian Tire. At least, not to reliably target individuals. I could see it being used to change prices for everyone, based on time, date, temperatures, and stuff like that, but yeah...

Also, apologies if this doesn't make full sense. I'm radically under caffeinated right now 😅

I dated a girl with severe, unmanaged BPD... It led to a LOT of wild arguments over the weirdest things lol

I also recently got into an argument with someone over whether or not Huskies and malamutes misbehave out of spite/revenge, or a lack of mental or physical stimulation...

It's absolutely a monopoly! But when they directly fund the CRTC, the likelihood of that is next to zero

Cause that's commie shit! What next? Gonna make us eat bugs?!

/S (I hope it was obvious lol)

My distrust of Meta wants to say they somehow siphon everything, but you're probably right. We don't know for sure, and speculating is probably just crazy-making at the end of the day.

I'm seriously just considering setting up a self hosted Matrix instance and piping all my chat apps through that. Get the more tech literate friends on something more secure, and then be done with the rest lol I'm basically already the unofficial (and untrained) sysadmin for my property lol

Okay, that's both cool and scary lol and Fair, yeah. I think WhatsApp would be the last on my list. I'd rather my telecom company siphon the data over Meta, but I get you

That's... Wow! Here, people prefer to use non-SMS options for messaging too, but if you give someone a phone number it's pretty much assumed you're getting an SMS unless they ask if you have WhatsApp, signal, or whatever else. That said, using Messenger is still pretty common here, as much as I'd wish it would die off. It is, slowly, but it needs to be quicker lol