Monitor vendors are playing with fire.
“Ads and OSes could one day help drive down the price of monitors, as they did TVs.” - Don’t buy into this. Ads don’t meaningfully affect the price of anything. It’s just free money for the company and they can charge extra as a “no ads fee” to the people that don’t want them. They’re not getting hundreds of dollars per person.
I always thought, if we returned to primitive life, it would be because of a nuclear war or something. Turns out enshitification, will drive people outside to throw Frisbees or something.
Why the fuck do I want a smart monitor? I have a computer, and a video card.
Maybe eventually it’ll morph back into iMacs.
I swear they are gonna come out with smart socks any day now
Lightspeed briefs
there are smart socks for babies that measure heart frequency etc.
edit: I just found out that they also have smart socks for running.
Time to start hoarding crts , but knowing then they’ll throw ads into the adapters 4ol5
Linux.
Linux won’t save you from smart monitors. It’ll be like every OS suddenly gets Windows Recall, except LG and Samsung have the database, not you.
So the monitor connects via HDMI? And somehow installs something over the HDMI connection? Or is the user conned into installing the LG app under the guise of improved monitor functionality or some such bullshit?
Given the recent article about how a website was using a zero volume audio signal to fingerprint browsers it’s probably good to assume that “they” are trying to get you any way “they” can.
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/all-about-usb-c-resistors-and-emarkers/
There’s a profit motive and a possible technological path. It’s a safe assumption someone will eventually do it. That doesn’t count bluetooth and wifi that only talks to other BrandX devices looking for a path out, and once 6G cell service becomes common it can be direct-to-device unless you’re in a Faraday cage.
HDMI can have ethernet as well, though I’m not sure how common (if at all) it is to route this through a normal video card. That might change if LG asks Asus nicely.
LG lost some trust after a recent report that some of its monitors installed McAfee pop-up ads onto connected computers. Since at least 2024, some of these displays installed an app, LG Monitor App Installer, onto connected computers under the cover of driver updates installed through Windows Update.
Connecting the monitor to the computer triggers a Windows driver update. LG grabs that update request and returns an app that automatically installs itself. The implied consent is willfully connecting the monitor to the computer.
Avoid LG products.
That’s called malware this is crazy
It’s an oligopoly. They do this because they think that prople can’t go to a competitor because Samsung is doing the same thing. The people that’s supposed to keep this from happening hasn’t been doing their job.
*Avoid Microsoft products too!
In a sane world, LG would be declared a criminal enterprise and executives would go to prison for massively violating the CFAA.
I got a free LG monitor from an office closure near me. Didn’t notice this because I’m a Linux person. Let someone use a Windows laptop with it via HDMI and it did that. Lol
Or is the user conned into installing the LG app under the guise of improved monitor functionality or some such bullshit?
According to the article, the add software is installed with the drivers through Microsoft Update.
So Linux users are safe, as always.
It will be big corporations that will go after this. There is no way they will allow a monitor to monitor their business and push ads on company time. Since they buy the most monitors it will be an easy push back.
And before anyone says the regular consumer is the biggest buyer of monitors. I have had the same monitor on my home PC for 10 years. I have gotten 4 new monitors just for my desk in the same amount of time. Plus the site is lousy with monitors for every critical system and the NOC.
Who’s seriously out here connecting their monitor to the internet?
The monitor is malware. It litterally backdoors software into systems over the hdmi connector. Windows is (stupidly) set up in a way that it just installs whatever “drivers” (ie adware) the monitor says it needs.
The monitor is telling Windows to install a driver which has ads in it.
My monitor ain’t telling Windows shit.
#BtwIUseArch
It also tells Linux, but Linux doesn’t speak English so it isn’t affected.
You mean enshitlish?
Keyword is Windows thank goodness for alternatives
Agreed - though this is likely the first step towards ads being built-in to the monitor itself.
You’d think so, but getting people to connect their monitor to wifi is going to be a hard sell.
There has to be some useful function to sell people on, otherwise they’ll join the ranks of wifi-equipped fridges and microwaves which almost never actually get connected to wifi.
Among tech-savvy people, maybe… I’d wager that, given a pop-up on the monitor asking for the Wifi credentials, at least 80% of people would oblige it.
And a non-connected monitor could still have ads, they just wouldn’t be able to change them. They could either charge extra for built-in ads, or just advertise their own stuff.
I’d argue that most people would see the pop-up, dismiss it and then be unable to tell you what it said. People have had a lot of practice at ignoring things trying to get their attention, because you need that skill to get through modern life where your attention is considered someone else’s property to be sold to advertisers.
It isn’t enough to show people ads, the manufacturer needs to be able to bill people for the ads. They need telemetry and updated ads. Built in ads aren’t going to fly, especially for the manufacturer’s own stuff which they could sell more effectively by not being shit to use.
Yep I agree with you also I never hook up the internet to any display. It makes me sad I just had to give up my pioneer plasma recently.
Linux becomes popular enough and this enshittification wave comes for us too
By the very nature of Linux it can’t happen from a simple plug and play.
I mentioned it somewhere else, but HDMI can carry an ethernet signal. They could potentially in the future show ads without having to deal with the OS at all. Of course you can just disable the network but most people won’t know how.
According to the article, the monitor installs software onto connected machines, and it runs ads from there
Fuck it, Im going back to VGA
laughs in pihole
