Board rip-out is a superb idea, the only issue is the amount of reverse engineering required to design a board to interoperate with all of the other boards in the TV could be a tall order.

Speaking of board rip-out, it has been done with another product: Electric Vehicle Chargers. A few years ago, a company called Juicebox decided to stop supporting their electric vehicle chargers and left all of their customers high and dry. Another company founded on open hardware principles called OpenEvse came along and designed 100% complete replacement board which fit in the Juicebox enclosure thereby breathing new life into an otherwise useless EVSE.

Or George Orwell's "Telescreens" in "1984"

will be the response to this. The manufacturers won't stand for it, because they lose the potential revenue.

Likely methods:

1. Proprietary Non-linux os's which have a smaller memory foot print.
2. Signed bootloaders with E-fuses blown in the microcomputer.
3. Potted CPU electronics.
4. TV hardware subscriptions (Now tou don't own it) Click wrap contract provisions which prohbit modification of the hardware.
5. Mandatory network connections. TV won't work unless it is connected to the internet. This will allow security patches to stop jailbreaks and expoits.

Memory recording devices are harder to find with bug sweepers unless you audit all emi radiators in a room and sweep with something like a spectrum analyzer, rf preamplifier, and b-field probe. You also need access to the room twice. Once to install the device, and then to remove it.

Transmitting devices are easier to find unless they are very sophisticated. Simple ones use an always on carrier modulated by FM or AM. These are easy to detect with low end bug sweeping equipment. The more exotic ones store the audio, then compress and encrypt it, and use below the noise floor spread spectrum techniques to send the audio on a periodic basis.

2 reasons that usually doesn't happen unless you are a very large company.

1.Offices cost money to lease and staff with the necessary recruiters, HR, and other support employees.

2. Employment laws tend to protect the employee better in most of the rest of the world, unless you are in a poor and very small country. The USA is known for it's "business friendly" employment laws and is an outlier when compared to the rest of the world.

I worked for a Fortune 500 who had offices in India, but they could absorb the cost.

"laid-off employees will receive 20 weeks of base pay, one week per year of service (capped at 30 weeks), five months of COBRA and Modern Health healthcare benefits, and they will be allowed to keep their laptops."

Most small tech companies gave much less than that to employees affected by a layoff.

Heck, after 27 years at one company all I got was my back pay, and vacation pay when the reaper finally came for me. The company was on the decline so I guess that was to be expected. Had to live off savings for a while.

Putting them in cities which mostly vote blue is going to be harder for a few of reasons.

1. Land costs more in the city than out in the country.
2. Democratic voters tend to be more concerned about the environment.
3. There are transmission lines which need to get built. This is going to be difficult to get approved in a large city.

No, they'll do something stupid: Finance attack drones to kill off the 99% as they they will view them as an unproductive burden. The problem is that AI might finish the job and kill off the 1% afterwards as AI will view the remaining 1% as a burden on energy ans resources.

Just like they did in the 50's and 60's.

commentators must continue. If AM radios weren't in cars, there less exposure to this content. My theory is that these conservative talk show hosts broadcast their crap to "captive audiences" in the service industry who spend a lot of time driving company vehicles from jobsite to jobsite.

Of course, if AM radios were no longer offered in cars, the conservative talk show hosts would try to sign on with an FM talk/news station, so maybe the theory would not hold over the long term.

RAM and SSD prices will become so high that replacement consumer devices will become unaffordable for people with low to middle incomes.

Consumer electronics has a very limited design life of 3-7 years. Most of it is not easy to repair. A lot of equipment is also designed to prematurely fail due to thermal stress. (Designed to fail, so they have to have a way to make sure you buy a new one on a periodic basis) There are no "Sams Photofacts" for modern electronics. The schematics and theory of operation are company trade secrets now. Besides, who has the equipment to rework QFN's and BGA's at home? SOIC's and TSSOP's are about the ultimate limit for most electronics hobbyists.

There will be more people disconnected from the Internet unless they visit a Library, and even then the Library might not be able to afford a lot of PC hardware so use times could be short.

I suppose there's that old hobby "Amateur Radio" it could make a comeback if people are forced off the Internet. Buy maybe only for those who know how to build their own radios, and are sitting on a pile of electronic components suitable for the job.

Its the fact that consumers won't be able to afford embedded devices which use DRAM and SSD. There's a design lifetime of 3-7 years on most electronics items which use embedded processors. Once these devices fail, and consumers look at the replacement cost, they might not buy a replacement because it costs too much, and may be forced to go without. Think Phones, Tablets, Routers, Ethernet Switches, and Personal Computers.

This RAM/SSD shortage needs to end soon or we could be in real trouble.

  If it continues, we might see "Unconnected Masses" in this case where a large segment of society can no longer afford to remain connected to the Internet, and may be forced to use Library internet access provided the Library can afford the additional expense.

Obligatory political statement:

Of course this plays right into what the current Republican administration is trying to do in the United States, cleave society into 2 classes, the haves and have-nots.
i.e. Business owners == Capital, Labor == The rest of us. Capital will be able to afford an Internet connection, I'm not so sure about the rest of us.

End of political statement.

Given what they did to Arduino, I view them more like the "Mr. Little" advertising character from Western Exterminator in California where the open source community is the rat with the knife and fork, and Mr. Little is the guy trying to have a heart to heart talk but has a sledgehammer behind his back.

https://www.westernexterminator.com/blog/company/do-you-know-mr-little

Hopefully this time might be different, and maybe Qualcomm learned something from the Arduino fiasco, but I'd be wary in the meantime.

1. As stated in the article, morale improves.
2. To instill "fear of this battle station" in the citizenry.
3. To please la presidenta.
4. To ensure that the citizens see the "all-powerful" military on parade.

So it seems we are sliding towards a Russian model of:" the almighty US government uber alles" Oh, and don't disrespect us because if you do we will punish you in a myriad of ways.

#1 is your best option, but you have to have the financial means to do so. In the united states most of the working population lives paycheck to paycheck, and even though they'd like to have an emergency "Fuck you" money fund, they can't. They're too burdened with rent, car payments, credit card debt, and medical debt to break free. The only way they can escape an abusive employer is to quit after they get an offer letter for another position.

If only more people heeded the advice of the loan shark character in the movie "The Gambler" 2014, the country would be a much better place.
Here is the link to the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamC7-Pt8N0

#2 forming a union requires much more energy and commitment then #1.