Palmer Luckey, the billionaire founder of defense technology company Anduril Industries and creator of the Oculus VR headset, is not typically the type to call for government regulation. As a self-described libertarian, Luckey tends to favor free markets over state intervention. But when it comes to smart televisions, he is willing to make an exception.
“I know I’m a libertarian and I’m not supposed to like regulation, but I sometimes flirt with the idea that smart TVs should be illegal. I h*te smart TVs so much,” Luckey said during a recent podcast.
The reaction did not surprise him. “Everyone agrees,” he noted, before offering a wry observation about political opportunism: “This is the danger of being a libertarian. You realize you can just adopt populist, pro-state positions and you can get voters.”
His criticism goes beyond frustration with clunky interfaces or slow software. Luckey’s core argument is structural. Rather than focusing on building the best possible screen, manufacturers have been pulled into an entirely different business.
They have convinced themselves they need to become software platforms, services providers, and operators of proprietary app stores. The result is a race to the bottom that no single company can afford to exit on its own.
“It’s a prisoner’s dilemma if you don’t introduce advertising into your TV feeds and if you don’t have a lock screen that’s showing ads on your TV,” Luckey said. “How could you compete with the people who charge just a few dollars less?”
His concerns arrive at a moment when regulators are beginning to ask similar questions. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently filed a lawsuit against five of the television industry’s largest manufacturers, including Sony, Samsung, LG, and Chinese-based companies Hisense and TCL Technology Group Corporation.
The suit centers on a technology called Automated Content Recognition, or ACR, which operates silently in the background of smart televisions and captures screenshots of on-screen content as frequently as every half second. That data is then transmitted back to manufacturers, often without users having any clear understanding of what is being collected or how it will be used.
“Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” Paxton said. “This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries.”
Paxton’s office noted that the involvement of Chinese firms carries particular risk under China’s National Security Law, which could compel companies to hand over consumer data collected abroad to the Chinese government.
Beyond targeted advertising, the lawsuit also warned that the collection of such detailed behavioral data creates exposure to broader security risks, including the potential compromise of passwords and banking information.
Consumer frustration over these practices had been building before the lawsuit was ever filed. LG faced significant backlash after Microsoft’s Copilot assistant appeared on television home screens following a software update, with no prior notice to users.
Many found the feature could not be removed. LG initially framed it as a convenience tool before reversing course under widespread criticism, eventually stating it would “take steps to allow users to delete the shortcut icon if they wish.”
The company maintained that Copilot functions as a web-based shortcut rather than a full application, and that microphone features activate only with explicit user permission.
Samsung moved in a similar direction, introducing Copilot integration across its 2025 smart TV lineup. The feature allows users to issue voice commands through their remote controls to ask questions about programs or receive recommendations. Users who want to opt out, however, must disconnect their television from the internet entirely, which also disables other features and cuts off future software updates.
Luckey sees an alternative path forward in the work being done by ModRetro, a company devoted to recreating the craftsmanship and experience of earlier hardware.
He pointed to the visual properties of CRT technology as a genuine engineering achievement worth revisiting, including high motion clarity, a wide color gamut, and the distinctive blending effects produced by phosphor persistence. But beyond those technical qualities, he argued there is something more fundamental being offered by the concept of a display that simply does what you connect to it.
“A TV that you can plug something into and it just shows what you plugged into it is an incredibly novel idea,” Luckey said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see ModRetro make a totally modern technology display.”
