> People are going to think you’re just salty about the general state of TV software

But your comment doesn't also make this not true.

<rant>

I have a Samsung and the software is not just bad, but it is rather impressive at how bad it is. It frequently registers multiple clicks (so pressing left or right will often move two places), lags on keypresses with upwards of 2 seconds delay, it tries to autodetect hdmi devices for... why knows why (you can press "exit" and be fine or you can try the secret command "power off, mute, vol down, ch down, mute, power on" to disable this because there is no setting in the settings), exiting the settings usually goes back to the TV but 1/3 times it opens the home menu, and a litany of other weird annoyances. Not to mention all the odd "improvements" on by default that no one seems to like and the spying.

Then when we look at the apps, the story seems quite similar. It is as if these products are built by and shipped by people who have never used them (at least regularly).

I think these streaming services have forgotten how and why Spotify killed music piracy. And how for awhile Netflix killed video piracy. It wasn't just that you could get most of your music in a single place (though this is an important factor), but that they also created a __better product__. These streaming services have brought back piracy because 1) crazy licensing and exclusivity agreements for even old shows (seriously? StarGate and Star Trek? Both of which have frequent lack of intro skips) and 2) are pushing out high cost subscriptions that are garbage apps and really only have maybe one or two shows that people actually want (and the general state of dark patterns being common in just our economy). The market has moved and people do not value the price of shows as much as they used to (especially several decades old shows). Netflix was doing fine and could have lived without increasing their subscription costs, even with companies taking shows off the platform.

The truth is that any people have found that pirating doesn't just provide better content, but that it is a better service/interface. It is often easier to download a show off piratebay, load it into jellyfin, than it is to stream it on Netflix. Jellyfin doesn't care if I'm on a linux computer or using firefox and respond by dropping my video quality. Same goes for Popcorntime (though they got seeding issues). My videos don't have to buffer or won't change quality while watching (seems they limit how much you can buffer. Youtube is a big offender of this), and all that. It's just... a better interface. I'd rather buy the subscription, pirate the shows I pay for, and watch them on Jellyfin than use the apps. Because it is a better experience.

I want to remind people that we live in a world where we have both LLMs and systems that can do impressive tasks like hold a conversation with someone AND it is common to have an app on your phone where it appears that the developers are unaware of the sort function. A big part of the issue is that even if you want the higher quality things, it is difficult to send that signal to these companies because often no such products exist and you can't learn about that quality value until you have the thing in your hands (and thus most people make the reasonable decision to choose based on price. Since that's all they have). It doesn't require conspiracy or explicit collusion, but just convergence and signal complexity/degradation. Because if you rely too hard on signals you'll look at them as targets instead of guides and quickly be victim to Goodhart's Law

</rant>