Oh yeah, I understand the sentiment entirely. With so many dark patterns dominating the world we live in because we live in a society that decided to embrace greed instead of seeing it as a primary motivator of evil, I can’t blame anyone that looks at the state of things with suspicion anytime there are downsides. And while it isn’t realistic to expect as good audio from a built-in system as a separate dedicated audio system, I do think it’s ridiculous that the standard is so dysfunctional that you either can’t understand what people are saying or explosions are way too loud. Especially in this digital world where mixing separate audio channels isn’t a difficult task. Streaming services should just have a stereo and mono version of the audio that is mixed well for that format if it is actually a harder problem than I think it is.

Some of it is practicality, but I don’t doubt that greed also plays into it. I mean, even on the modularity side, I don’t have the option of easily finding a TV without any speakers at all, or a TV without smart features that a) aren’t as good as other options I have to access those features and b) were actually thrown in to spy on data, as your previous comment mentioned.

So yeah, I don’t blame you at all for being suspicious of the companies that absolutely are trying to fuck their users because their real customers are data buyers, even if I do prefer my soundbar.