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The falling price of a TV set

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Re: The falling price of a TV set

#171

Post by sturgill »

FranOntanaya wrote: post #154
seltzered_ wrote: post #72

If you look at a chart of TV prices over 50-80 years, this has always been a trend [1]. Institutes using this as an argument for declining poverty are missing the point that while most goods have gone down in cost over the years, services (childcare) and things of value (education) have gone up substantially [2]. [1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-the-incredib... [2]: Elizabeth Warren's classic "Twi…

I doubt it captures the change from TV being central in peoples' lifes to being a sideshow to internet. The value of owning a TV in the old times was much higher than now.

I remember growing up in the 80s that there were only a handful of people in the entire community that had multiple TVs. In the 90s some teens in the upper middle class had a tv in their bedroom.

I remember buying my first tv as a married couple around 2007. We were still in undergrad and quite poor, but saved up and bought a 32” HDTV from Walmart for like $400.

Fast forward to today and you can get a 65” 4K tv from Best Buy for that same price [0]. Is it a good tv? No clue. But in 2007 a 32” tv seemed huge....

[0] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/promo/xl-tv-savings

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#172

Post by baot »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #168
wallace_f wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The whole auto industry today is a large scale scam where we trade the environment and our health for corporate profits In theory, it should be easy to solve transport within a metro area with low-carbon solutions such as walking, bicycling and public transport. I'm continually amazed by how good public transport and walkability are in some cities outside America. Bicycles also have amazing potential and a few succe…

Biking in a foot of snow, on roads with pot holes large enough to swallow a tire, or that flood, or turn to black ice, is dangerous and sucks. Add the lack of actual bike lanes on all but a few block long stretches and biking becomes a death wish. Sure I can get a studded fat tire bike, and bike down the middle of the lane with dozens of pissed off people behind me honking and screaming at me, but that still doesn't…

You only chose to live that far from work, in a place that gets a foot of snow, because you assumed you could make the journey in a petroleum car. It wouldn't have been possible 100 years in the past and it won't be possible 100 years in the future. Same for your employer choosing not to provide showers.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#173

Post by scarface74 »

mrandish wrote: post #133
gruez wrote: post #62

>With less demand for actual TVs, there’s less reason for manufacturers to price them even more highly. I don't buy this reasoning. Tablets and phones supposedly replaced laptops and desktops (or so I've heard), yet the prices for those hasn't really budged in the past couple of decades. >But the most interesting and telling reason for why TVs are now so cheap is because TV manufacturers have found a new revenue stre…

Yes, I agree. The article's claim about app rev share offsetting big parts of the cost just doesn't make sense. The reason that prices are lower is that manufacturing capacity is much higher, not supporting analog input saves money, vertical integration onto a handful of ICs, container shipping and supply chains are cheaper and Costco, WalMart etc will sell TVs for very low markup to drive traffic.

Roku is built into many of the lower end TVs. I’m sure they get a cut of the revenue that Roku receives.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-11/streaming...

Nearly every inch of real estate on Roku is for rent. For $1 million, a streaming service can take over the home screen to advertise a show. When Hulu got the rights to stream Seinfeld, it paid Roku to transform a portion of the screen into an image of Jerry’s apartment instead of the default purple backdrop. Hulu, Netflix, Showtime, and YouTube have paid Roku to build brand-specific buttons on its remote controls; these lead users straight to those services. At $1 per customer for each button, the cost can quickly add up to millions of dollars in monthly fees.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#174

Post by scarface74 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #76
uptown wrote: post #3

"The trade-offs for cheap TVs is that customers are themselves becoming the product for TV makers [...] For something to be as cheap as a great TV, people have to give something up — whether they know it or not." Just never give the TV its own direct connection to the internet. Use another device that you do trust, to feed the big screen its content.

If the trends from previous schemes follow, then soon someone will offer you a 'free' TV streamer which streams what ever you want for free while simultaneous streaming 3 or 4 other streams, using your behavior on your stream to mimic you on the other streams which capture revenue from advertising that is never actually viewed.

Companies were giving away “free” $400 computers in exchange for signing up for dialup for two years back in 1999. I’m surprised that streaming service providers aren’t doing the same.

I did get two “free” $179 AppleTV 4Ks for signing up for, DirecTVNOW for 3 months (signed up twice in the course of a year). A 40 inch TCl Roku tv is the same price.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#175

Post by scarface74 »

metafizikal wrote: post #35
ghaff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chromecasts may be the best low-key (and low-cast) gadget out there. Which probably means Google will kill it :-/ Just use my tablet, phone, or laptop to put content up on the TV. It makes for a pretty nice digital picture frame too.

luckily Chromecast seems to be an important piece of Stadia, so it should be around for a long while

As if you can count on Stadia being around for awhile....

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#176

Post by scarface74 »

duelingjello wrote: post #124

It's also why Amazon/Apple/Google/Roku/etc. basically gives away their beachhead-building boxes that are launching-points for their content platforms and integrations as cheaply as inkjet printers or razor handles. It's "razor blade" economics of a near-zero marginal unit-cost service bought on a subscription-basis, and analytics resold.

At $179 for an AppleTV 4K, I wouldn’t say Apple is “giving it away”.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#177

Post by scarface74 »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #116
habosa wrote: post #104

Ok here's a question: why do I care? Watching TV has always been an experience with ads in it. Netflix is going to know what I watch no matter what device I use. In fact, my TV is probably the most private way for me to watch a streaming service since it knows basically nothing else about me. So I got a beautiful TV for an affordable price and the manufacturer made some more money on ads in a way that I have not noti…

I see two major problems with this business model of subsidizing TV hardware with adware/telemetry/spyware solutions: 1. The UI platforms + middleware used for these TV's are often a low budget MVP development (it's also not part of the core knowledge of manufacturers), meaning you don't need to go far to find customers complaining of unresponsive UIs and sudden crashes. 2. The lifetime of the device far exceeds the…

Most of the lower end TVs have Roku integrated. While you might not like their business model, Roku knows how to make a good set top UI on cheap hardware.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#178

Post by newsgremlin »

Keverw wrote: post #20

> Automakers, for example, can now expect to see bigger profits from the loans they make on selling cars than from selling the actual cars I've heard of that. Then I heard dealers will give you a hard time if you want to buy a car right out, some will even run your credit without your permission. I don't have the money to go buy a new car right now, but it's pretty sad that saving up and paying for things is so disco…

Seems like in the present-future the only thing people will own is their debt. All our possessions are being turned into services, financed by our debt. Low interest rates makes saving impractical, it will all be put into some monthly fee, repayment, or subscription.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#179

Post by scarface74 »

nugget wrote: post #4

I'm optimistic about the next 5 years of SmartTV market evolution. It's a relatively new platform and as the devices reach certain market saturation points (and play nicer with phones) I think we'll start to see a lot of really interesting applications. They're also very cheap compared to other devices.

Roku TVs are already pretty well integrated with phones.

They have remote listening where you can play audio from your phone instead of the TV. This is useful if you want to watch TV while your SO is sleeping. It also has a remote app for phones and the Apple Watch.

Of course the AppleTV set top box is integrated with Apple devices well.

Re: The falling price of a TV set

#180

Post by scarface74 »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #37
baroffoos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concept of a smart TV is a good one its just the implementation is always awful. It is useful to be able to stream content directly to your tv but every single smart tv I have seen has a slugish UI, is awkward, has random bugs, becomes unsupported by the OEM after a few years and is now insecure and gets ransomware. And then OEMs crap it up themselves and fill the OS with adverts and tracking. After all t…

I really like the Chromecast UX model, your TV is completely brainless, has no native user interface, no cheap and nasty remote, and any of your other devices boss it around like the dumb wireless monitor it should be.

That’s actually a horrible model for TV. TV is often social. I would hate to have to have my phone to control my TV. Not to mention when guests come over. I’ll give someone else the remote, but not my phone.
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