> the ads are annoying but it's fine

This doesn't parse. It's like saying 'this apple is rotten but it's fine'.

If the apple is rotten, then it is not fine.

If the television has annoying ads, then it is not fine.

This is a common way of speaking in American English. For example

"Hey earlier today you fell down, how's your elbow feeling?"

"Not too bad, it's annoying but it's fine"

Double negatives are very much a British English thing and are commonly used in every day language.

I think you would have avoided all the downvotes with, "Double negatives are very much an English language thing and are commonly used in every day language", since American and British English both involve double negatives in colloquial usage.

I only know a handful of Americans and we often talk about the differences in our language. Even had an Australian join the conversation once too and it was a very interesting discussion.

The use of double negatives stood out as something more commonly used in British English however I accept it was a very small sample size!

It does parse. It's not like what you say, it more like "this apple has a bruise and some blemishes but I'm still happy to consume it". Television has had annoying ads for much of the past century and millions of people still found enough value in it to watch it.

I can't speak for the parent comment, but when I use such a grammatical construct, I mean that although it is suboptimal, I am putting up with it. It does not mean that I think it is ok.

It’s not ok that your tv has a banner ad!

It took me a little while (and it seems like they managed to add some more domains at one point) but I’ve successfully blocked all outgoing connections from my TV and removed the ads

Why have the TV on the network at all?

I’ve got a Samsung frame… and you need the net to get the picture screen going … ! Which I quite like as a feature. Even though I put all our digital tv through an Apple TV.

youtube, netflix, etc...?

...Can all be streaming via a plugged in device. Your television should be a monitor, nothing more.

Agreed, all networked things on my TV goes through Apple TV (puck, not the service).

I have an LG TV, and the ability to have Apps on the TV, without a plugged in decide - Netflix, BBC iplayer, ITV Hub, AppleTV, Twitch, Youtube etc. makes for a very pleasant, seamless experience.

One time cost of plugging in a device vs never having ads again

I too have an LG TV that I quite like. It’s fun seeing WebOS in use and I actually like the built-in apps. Then again, it doesn’t show ads. The day it does, it’ll never see the internet again and get fed from an external device.

But actually it is ok. I've gotten used to it and don't notice. It doesn't harm me in any way

Despite paying hundreds or even thousands, you're okay with that?

Just because one tolerates something doesn’t mean they think it’s ok. Besides, what’s the other option? Any “smart” platform needs an internet connection, and will show ads because of that.

Laptop with Adblock

> Personally I take much bigger risks day to day by doing things like biking to work, so I'm okay with the risk of my TV sending data back to advertisers.

It's up to you how you feel about the privacy issue, of course, but that's not how risk works. It's additive. The fact that you take other risks, bigger or smaller, doesn't rationally change the value of this risk.

Steel-manning, they could have meant that the larger risk makes this smaller on insignificant. Adding 1 to 1,000,000,000 also results in a larger number - not that I think the actual compared risks could be given these numbers on any scale, but to their mind the TV privacy risk may be too insignificant to bother with when there are easier and larger risks to work on.