There should be a law that any change of T&C after the purchase of a product gives the customer the option to refuse the terms and get a full refund of that product, no matter how old it is.
I have a smart light switch I can’t use anymore because they updated the app to force you to make an account to use it and I refused since it worked fine for the last 3 years without them needing to sell my data.
If the firmware on the switch hasn’t been updated to not function with old versions of the app why not just snag an old APK and use the old app version?
At least as long as you own the thing, worth a shot
Easier to replace the light switch at that point
It’s… really not that hard.
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Uninstall the new app, download the old app from https://www.apkmirror.com/ (which is basically an archive of most apps downloadable from Google Play).
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Use an app like APK signer to change the app’s “signature” so it doesn’t automatically update.
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Install it.
It takes like 10 minutes at most.
I did exactly this with the Discord app last year when they suddenly changed the app’s entire layout.
I love discord’s new layout, did you give it a chance?
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The devices those users paid for? That should be illegal.
I’m pretty sure this won’t fly in court because this is a significant change to a product long after the product was purchased, which could potentially fly in the face of false advertising laws, since this “feature” was not advertised, and they’re not being denied access to a product they purchased. It’s clearly coercive.
However, this is the USA and stupider shit has happened. Judges here love to gargle corporate balls. See: Clearance Thomas.
Clearance Thomas.
Please do NOT change this. It is both accurate and delightful.
-chef’s kiss-
Is there a FOSS option to turn something like a pi zero into streaming device? My assumption is a flavor of Android is required?
Edit: referring to streaming services such as Netflix. I’m aware of that home plex and jellyfin servers exist
do you want to pir8 stuff or watch streaming apps (Netflix, Hulu, HBO max?)
I’ve been looking for a couple of days. It looks like Kodi is probably the way to go.
You can use any of a number of remote controls, or even a modern cell phone.
Unless your media server is up to the full task of transcoding it needs to have a little bit of horsepower to do transcoding on the client.
I have no idea how US contract law works. Even if you agree to something that says “we can alter the deal at any time”, when a change happens to the deal, don’t both sides have to benefit, rather than “agree to this change so that you can keep the same thing you had before”?
But don’t you see, the consumer surely benefits. After agreeing they get to continue using their tv under our new and wonderful terms of service. /s
Not a lawyer, but 99.9999% sure this violates the CFAA. Correct me if I’m wrong? Would t even matter if they included it in EULA or something, ‘no reasonable person…’
This has class action lawsuit written all over it.
You know what. Pirate everything.
That’s more absurd than my ex, who began wearing full-coverage panties to bed, until I consented to give her the credit card without monitoring her spending. In fairness to my ex, this made mixing 50 ounces of stryctnine into her spaghetti far more appealing than it had been prior
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about
“Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about”
Definitely not Danny or Joey. The former has been dinner for the worms since '22, and the latter’s career has been dead for decades longer than that
This guy was defending rape earlier today. He really hates women it appears.
Enshittification continues. I used to evangelize roku bc I want a dumb TV. I guess that’s no longer valid.
Dude it’s a terms of service update, it’s not like watching ads on a subscription you already pay for.
The terms of service update made you sign away your rights to sue the company if they refused to honour the warranty, that’s what people are upset about
I know, I read it, and those words mean absolutely nothing. You and I will never be affected by it. It’s like a random passerby waving sage at you and telling you they’ve disturbed your aura.
I promise you practically every TOS you’ve ever blindly clicked through said something very similar.
You are downvoted, but you are right that at least some do this
ToS are generally not binding as it’s not expected for the average person to actually read through the dense language. There is precedent for this
My kid consented. I think. Can she make binding contracts that she doesn’t tell me about because she’s looking for Blues Clues, or am I responsible for every OK she checks when I’m not present?
I let my cat step on the remote. Fucker doesn’t pull his weight, so if the lawyers come after him he’s on his own.
Outrage over ticking a checkbox? Was anything in the updated TOS worth being pissed about or are people just that fucking lazy? The article not having the exact wording of the changes but talking about the dispute resolution arbitration–that’s in every TOS for pretty much everything ever isn’t mandatory and doesn’t say you can’t sue–is a bit suspicious.
Dude already had to update the article because he misunderstood one thing already. This reads like the knee jerk reaction of a random person which belongs on a blog, and not a news article that belongs on a news outlet site.
If you can’t see that the issue is that the TOS could include anything the company wants and that disagreeing means the device I already paid for is intentionally bricked then I don’t know what to tell you.
They’ve always been able to do that; it’s often the very first fucking paragraph of a TOS. If you’re just now noticing it I don’t know what to tell you.
What flavor is that boot you’re licking? Must be pretty tasty.
I don’t agree with the practice; but at this point it’s not like you can do shit about it unless you’re building your own devices. Not that anything illegal added to a TOS would be upheld in court anyway… I’d love to see someone actually sue on this issue, but nobody upset about it seems to have the money or willingness to do so, considering it’s been a thing for decades.
Besides: that wasn’t the point the article was making, either, which is what I have issue with; The shoddy journalism.
Well, my next tv won’t have a Roku in it. I was just about to buy one, and if anyone here has any advice on a dumb TV with no built-in smart features, I would really appreciate some suggestions. They’re surprisingly difficult to find nowadays. I’m looking for some thing 43 inches or smaller, 4K or 1080, and nothing special. Preferably very cheap.(I’m poor)
Most LGs can be set up without internet at all.
My fucking Samsung Refrigerator refused to cool until I paired it to a mobile app. It wasn’t even one of those fancy tablet screen ones. It beeped at me for hours until I had the time to figure out wtf was wrong with it.
That’s insane. I know it’s a ball ache to move them but I’d have taken that thing right back and gotten a refund.
Maybe just buy a monitor, particularly if you only need streaming.
I use my “smart” tv as a monitor to stream. It has never connected to the internet and it does not pester me.
This is the real answer. If you don’t have any benefit from connecting it to the Internet, don’t. Use a separate device for streaming, if you have to. I guess Apple TV or NVIDIA Shield, or Chromecast? I need to look into the benefits, but I don’t want to support Roku anymore…
Smart TVs are usually sold at a loss because they expect to make the money back through ads, so if you never connect one to the internet in the first place, you get a cheap decent TV and you cost these cockroaches money
My setup is a Samsung that doesn’t have WiFi setup. It supports HDMI CEC, as does my game console and streaming box, so I basically never touch the TV remote. It’s effectively a dumb monitor.
I mostly stream via my Xbox and AppleTV since they’re performant systems.
It’s effectively a dumb monitor.
I may be old-fashioned but that’s the only thing a TV is supposed to be. You choose how to use it by its periphery.
When are we gonna finally nail companies for using underhanded and coercive tactics with consumers?
Oh, never? Okay then.
US: best we can do is a other corporate tax cut
Tbf Biden is currently campaigning on raising corporate taxes and the top tax bracket. To actually get anything done though, Democrats would have to take back the house.
When we make lobbying illegal in
this countrythe United StatesEurope is doing it. Look at Apple vs Spotify, as well as Apple forced to open their app stores to 3rd parties. Those are consumer oriented laws. In the USA, lobbying prevent those from happening.
My in-laws have all Roku tvs. I had to go over and “fix” the TV’s for them cause they didn’t understand what the hell this was. I straight up just gave them my modded Nvidia shields and bought myself some more. Fuck that shit. We need a better open source tv like interface. I’ve used plasma big screen but it’s not ready for normal people with not Linux but fixing experience.
When are the users taking them to court. These guys aren’t Nintendo so I expect them to have to fuck themselves.
So legally speaking, what happens if it was my 8 year old son, who clicks buttons with no regard for human life, that agreed to this BS TOS? How is that legally binding?
