This is definitely on the horizon and future generations won’t even be aware of a time when you didn’t pay a subscription for every aspect of life. (TikTok screencap)
this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
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On a related note, I was looking at RTINGS recently at their recommended TVs. One really important item for me is that I'm not subjected to ads.
It turns out that every single smart TV they tested has ads, and there's no way to opt out of those ads.
https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/ads-in-smart-tv
It's not possible to "vote with your dollars" to choose a TV that doesn't have ads, because 100% of the TVs have ads now.
I know you can get a commercial flat panel intended for restaurants and stuff that doesn't have any of those features, but those are hard to find, expensive, and don't have basic features like multiple inputs.
If you think you can get around this by refusing to connect your TV to the Internet, some of them start to interfere with your use of them until you do connect them. Which ones? I wish RTINGS told me.
And, making it all worse, you know that every one of these things is going to have an EULA that allows them to enshittify it even more at some future date. And, you can't get around that either, because either they're designed to stop working if they don't a recent update, or there's a bomb planted in an update that only activates months later, so rolling back (if that's even possible) won't help you.
I know US law is never going to help consumers with this, but I do hope eventually Europe addresses this. People in Europe do still sometimes seem to have some rights when it comes to big companies.
There, FTFY.
At least Sceptre has a wide selection of dumb TVs. There are more brands if you search.
It was 100% of the TVs that RTINGS had reviewed, which was 501 different TVs, but apparently no SCEPTRE TVs at all.
Unfortunately, it looks like the SCEPTRE TVs don't get very good ratings:
https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/tvs/sceptre-c550cv-u/m393713/
So, I guess there is one manufacturer who still makes dumb TVs, it's their low-end line and doesn't get good reviews, but it is a dumb tv, which is nice.
"there's no way to opt out of... ads"
FYI... You want an oubliette for ads, and PiHole is your friend there. No hyperbole. Easy install & upkeep, remarkably effective, active community of devs & fans of all sorts, and just nice people all the way down, IMHE. 🙇🏼♂️✊🏻
Essentially, said ads have to come from somewhere before being presented to your eyeballs/eardrums, and a PiHole let's the ad servers think they're doing exactly that, but sends them into the void, instead. Clean, efficient, silent.
Fuck capitalism, but don't tell it you're doing so. No reason to notify it of it's failure to inundate your household. 🤓🖖🏼
PiHole blocks the ads by manipulating the DNS entries of known ad servers. So, the ad servers don't get any traffic. It's the ad clients that are affected. The ad servers never get any traffic.
Do the PiHole block lists work for TVs? Probably. But, the block lists are mostly built for web / app clients. It probably works if your TV uses Google TV. But, it's possible that other TV operating systems like Tizen use a different source for its ads that isn't on the blocklist. The worst case would be if the ads came from the same domain as the updates for the TV OS. You could block that domain, but then your TV couldn't get updates. And some TVs, if they can't get updates will start to complain and interfere with your use of them.
I wouldn't want to risk it, so I'd prefer to get a dumb TV that still had all the standard TV features: a TV tuner, multiple inputs, a high refresh rate, decent speakers, etc. But, failing that, I'd be OK with a smart TV that didn't have ads built in. But, apparently neither of those things is easy to find anymore.
You've already made your choice. 🤷🏼♂️
I don’t know if this is helpful, but I recently bought a 55” Hisense and I just plug my old-school Roku USB stick into it. The UI is super basic and ad-free. It’s not 4k or anything, but for streaming shows and playing PS5 it works like a charm.
Here's what RTINGS says about one of the Hisense TVs:
And someone on another site has a video showing an ad playing as soon as their Hisense TV is turned on. The person posting says it doesn't happen every time. And, maybe it's disabled if you have it set to turn on using "input 2" or whatever your USB stick is connected to. But, an unskippable ad on start-up means I'm not going to risk buying a Hisense TV.
Just don't connect your TV to the internet?
Never had any ads on a TCL TV because it can't reach any servers. And it happily is chugging along.
Some TV models start to complain if they're not connected to the internet, interfering with your use of them.
Do you really need multiple inputs? Pair it with a nice receiver and let that handle the inputs.
How much is a nice receiver going to cost me?
Whatever it takes! This is how you get the best home audio!
Ok, so that isn't a suitable recommendation.
If you're serious, there's a range of products available to match your needs. Do you want full surround support? Just stereo? Bells and whistles or basics? How many inputs? Specific power requirements? The price ranges can take you anywhere from the low hundreds to the many thousands. Need some requirements first.
So, the price of a TV. If I had lots of money to spend I'd love to have one, but realistically it's not worth it when it's that expensive. I'll just get a TV with multiple inputs.