Nah, it’s mostly because gamers Nexus reviewed an LG monitor, which also had that shit (monitors were traditionally ‘dumb’ before this), so he decided to do a broader investigation.

Don’t worry, they all do it. You basically have to buy a dumb display if you want privacy.

If you can detect and identify the other devices on the LAN, you know exactly which other smart devices the customer has, and at scale that’s very valuable market research. They could probably even start sending ads to customers for an LG replacement if a device drops off the network.

I’ve heard Norm Finkelstein say it as something his mother used to say. It’s a reference to how her Apple Strudel recipe was featured in a magazine before the war.

I personally haven’t had to touch it in over a decade, but I guess there’s probably some uses for it still, yeah.