So very happy about how high your horse is in your unabomber media setup, but that’s not practical for me or in general.

Not subscribing to cable is unabomber a media setup? Not practical? We’re talking about TV, not food or shelter here. Also, we’re having a nice conversation. I know you’re frustrated with the situation you’re in, but if it requires me to be the butt of your insults to continue talking, I’m out.

And we are back to my original objection: That is a restriction based on activism, not practicality.

This isn’t activism. Its a cost/benefit analysis. As in “what are you willing to put up with to get the content you want at the time you want it?”

Besides live sports (and even then sometimes) nearly all content available from a cable TV box is obtainable (legally) from somewhere else. The cable box isn’t the only place to get TV. If the cable box is providing you with a user experience that is substandard (by your own subjective measures), then you have to ask yourself is it worth the cost? You may be able to get the same content without the aspects you don’t like. It may cost more money. You’ll have to ask yourself if its worth it to pay that money to avoid the annoyance.

I can do that for myself, but not for every family member.

Your family members don’t seem to have any problem with the user experience of your current setup. No need for them to change.

It’s not reasonable to tell someone that they won’t be watching this or that show, despite being bundled in our cable, which is in turn bundled with our internet package, because I’m annoyed at privacy pop-ups.

I’m not suggesting that. Through this whole conversation I thought we were just trying to solve the problem for you and your family can continue to consume the solution they’re okay with.

It’s not reasonably to tell everybody in the house that we’re cancelling all of our streaming services, which are routed through the offending hardware, because we’re a Bluray-only household now, I’ve decided.

Why would you have to cancel all your streaming services? I even said that I have a streaming household. What is preventing you from getting a lightweight (as in user experience) streaming device, such as an AppleTV or Nvidia Shield, and also setting up your household streaming accounts on that device in your house attached to the same TV? When you want to watch something without interference or popups on streaming, switch input to your device and watch away without intrusion.

Both the structure of the service and the implementation are now industry standard. You can go “off the grid” with some effort and enduring some restrictions, but you can’t choose to keep the same level of service and not use the mandatory cable box your cable provided installs if you still want to have access to cable channels.

If your family wants to watch through the cable box for their shows, let them. You can likely get the shows you want to watch without going through the cable box.

I didn’t even have OTA TV last time I was living alone. All I really need is a disc player, a tablet and a computer. Now I’m not living alone I don’t get to be fussy on principle because I don’t like having to click “opt out of cookies” every time I want to watch the news.

If you’re watching Live TV news, flip over to your OTA tuner and watch the news there without your cable box/smart TV cookie messages. You may notice the video quality is MUCH better in OTA than compressed cable TV anyway.

It’s already a stretch to insist on rejecting all the cookie prompts instead of accepting the intrusion for convenience.

So you DO have a level of demands on the family for your current solution. Thats fine. Family dynamics are unique to each of us. In your place one strategy I might try is bribery. As in, ask your family if they’d be willing to get a non-smart TV (with an attached streaming box of their collective choice attached) if you were to give each a sum of money ($50, $100, you’d know your family and finances better than I do). I know some younger ones would take that offer in a second to get an extra $50 to spend on Fortnite skins or Taylor Swift albums. Again, this last one is optional to try and get rid of the Smart TV. If your own streaming device on another input of the Smart TV does everything you need, you could skip this step.