The falling price of a TV set | Hacker News Reader

The falling price of a TV set

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86 pointspaulpauper208 comments

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 "Twin Income Trap" talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

But how much cheaper is it to learn a profitable skill? In the 1980s I’d have had a much harder time learning to code. I learned essentially for free. A traditional, hand holding education is more expensive, but information is virtually free.

Blooms 2 Sigma problem [1] suggests that while it is cheaper to get access to the material, you’ll do better if taught by an expert tutor.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem

Wow, that effect size. I'm amazed that the implications haven't been pursued vigorously, as it's so rare to get such an effect size in a clean, non-controversial (compromised methodology) experiment. As far as I can see, there's not much controversy around this result.

I learned it from the K&R and Mapping the Amiga I checked out of the local library, and a Heathkit manual I had from somewhere.

Of course I didn't learn the programming discipline until college many years later, and it shows in my early code.

That’s because you’re not actually paying for the education itself but access to the network of people who also can afford it plus the brand name of the institute.

You picked one skill -- computer programming -- which just happens to be the one the internet is built on. It should come as no surprise that the internet is a great place to learn that for free.

The further you get from that, the worse teacher the internet is. There are many skills I've learned which are hard to find information about online, and a few which don't seem to exist on the internet at all.

Not every profession has someone who took the time to sit down and put all their knowledge on the internet for free. Some fields are just getting around to putting it in books.

> There are many skills I've learned which are hard to find information about online, and a few which don't seem to exist on the internet at all.

Do you have any examples? Sounds like an opportunity.

I think that very well may be true, but it definitely doesn’t match my own intuition based on what I’ve seen. I have seen extensive educational videos for free online about math, art (digital, painting, etc.), music (theory, composition, orchestration, specific instruments, production, etc.), writing, electronics, 3D printing, plumbing, construction and home repair, woodworking, language learning, aviation, filmmaking (visual effects, cinematography, acting, directing, screenwriting, etc.), marketing, entrepreneurship, investing and financial advice, etc.

The difficulty is sorting out the terrible videos from the good videos.

There's plenty of content created by people who don't really know what they're doing, or who only have a rudimentary understanding.

I guess that's true of all education, but it feels like a bigger problem with free online content.

Yes, having choice creates more problems with choosing :) previously you might just have been stuck with the terrible ones.

I find anything diy on YouTube to be of greater quality the worse quality the production is.

For every hobby now there is a least one big watering hole that the prosumers gather into and it is full of amazing info and how to tutorials. Right now you can become good enough in any skill with two week deliberate practice.

This is true and cheese making is one of those things. However, I have learned an amazing amount about cheesemaking simply from reading wikipedia, learning chemistry from Kahn academy, reading patents, reading papers that are online. watching videos of tours of creameries on Youtube and asking questions to professional cheesemakers that happen to be available on social media. I reckon if I wanted to become a professional it would be within my reach if I was willing to put in enough effort (and had enough capital ;-) ). I doubt there are many professions that are not accessible (possibly making bamboo whisks for green tea ceremonies -- there are only 18 people in all of Japan who make them ;-) ). It's an incredible time to be alive.

The problem today isn't access to information, it's access to time and focus. Because wages are so low and basic costs so high, it is very difficult for people who didn't manage to stay on the 1st-class career track to make way for development without jeopardizing their health, well-being, or job in the immediate future.

And yet most of those people have their consent manufactured, buying into scapegoating of slaves even worse off than them (homeless, foreigners, minorities, etc.), vote against their own interests and believe that socialism and welfare for anyone other than the very rich is as repugnant as pedophilia.

I learned to code well enough to get a job for free in the '90s and it was certainly much, much easier than it would be now.

What sucks is that the cycle of falling prices and models being replaced is so fast that they become not worth repairing -- or impossible to repair -- within a few years.

I trashed an otherwise perfectly good 4-5 y/o 49" television last year because something on the IR receiver board failed. What leads I could find for a replacement board (a) had them listed around 50% of what a comparable replacement television cost and (b) didn't actually have any to sell me.

Upside, now even my rarely-used guest bedroom rates a fairly cheap 55" 4K smart TV. This holiday season the same money buys their 65-inch model, next year it'll probably buy a 70.

TVs keep getting so much cheaper so fast, I keep putting off purchasing a new one. I still have a 9-years-old 640p(ish) 42-inch TV mainly used to rotate through my photo collection. It's still "good enough" and I don't watch that much TV on the big screen anyway, although once my daughter gets older I'll probably finally bite the bullet and get a modern, high end TV.

If I want to watch something with high resolution and good color accuracy, my iPad has been fulfilling my needs just fine. Feels surprising to say that, considering a few years ago I was poo-pooing the iPad and people who watched tv/movies on them.

Depending on the technology used in the TV (ie plasma vs LCD) it might have quite a big power draw when running for long times. Newer TVs have usually much lower consumption, so it might take financial sense to upgrade from this perspective as well

That would not be such a big issue if we had closed recycling loop.

Recycling is fundamentally impractical because the costs of doing the recycling a part at a time overwhelm the cost of mass production of new goods.

I think this is called "cost disease"[1].

To your examples, however, non-university education has gone down precipitously in price. I'm teaching myself machine learning and financial trading for essentially free, with tools and resources that significantly exceed what was available to people 20 years ago. I think the most useful skill today is "learning how to learn" and I don't think it's taught very well in our public education system. I know that hiring tutors and professionals and coaches is valuable and that self-education isn't a panacea, but we're certainly in a better spot than we were 30 years ago.

Childcare in San Francisco ranges from $1,000/month to $4,000/month. Was ye olde "cheap childcare" of days passed less expensive than $1000/month adjusting for inflation? I remember old childcare centers from the 1980s had significant problems compared to the relatively posh, highly regulated, childcare centers available today. Another big problem with childcare is the childcare tax credit which is a laughably small amount. From a government revenue-maximization perspective, it seems silly to discourage dual income households from continuing to stay dual income. But maybe the CBO has figured this all out and I'm completely wrong.

I certainly agree with you that certain things have gone up significantly in price (healthcare and housing come to mind), but I think it's at the very least debatable that standards of living have gone down.

[1]Scott Alexander has a very interesting blog post on the phenomenon of "cost disease": https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

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

I wish education was cheaper. All the college content I consumed is available for free now on the internet.

Our society needs to recognize that only a certain percentage of people ever want to go to college, and that is okay. No need to put people in debt and set them up for failure.

> 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 took a community college class in accounting taught by a guy who used to sell cars. He told me the money a dealership made was not from selling the cars, it was from selling the financing.

This was in the 1970's.

BTW, I recommend taking a basic accounting class. It will pay off for your whole life, even if you never run a business.

This. A dealer's margins on the cars are razor thin these days. They make the money on financing and servicing.

Even if you buy the car in cash, the purchase is one time payment, but after that they have you as a recurring customer for the long run with service costs which is where the money comes in.

No wonder modern cars are designed to be as difficult to service as possible by the owner. In my older Fiat I could change the air and cabin filter without any tools in 2 minutes. On my latest one they're both bolted with custom screws. WHY?! On my older one the user manual would be full of instructions on how to perform small maintenance tasks yourself. On the new one all it says is contact your authorized dealer. It's as if the cars of the past were designed by engineers and cars of today are designed by MBAs to be disposable black boxes like laptops or phones where only the genius bar employees have repair access.

The whole auto industry today is a large scale scam where we trade the environment and our health for corporate profits and is being marketed to us as a desirable lifestyle we should all aspire to which I wish not take part of but I can't due to shitty public transport in my city and employers placing their offices in buttfuck middle of nowhere to save on rent.

Unfortunately, the auto industry comprised of manufacturers and dealers have too much power in some European countries, and, as they keep touting how our dependency on car ownership is creating more jobs, their influence on the future of urban planning ain't going nowhere.

>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 successes in the world as mass transit.

It seems the issue is not with engineering a solution, but with the politics of what gets implemented through our politicians and bureaucrats.

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 solve the other problem of rampant unprosecuted bike theft in my city. Nor do I have a place to shower once I get to work.

So I'd need two bikes, one with specialized winter tires, that I'm replacing frequently when they get stolen.

Another gym membership to shower at before I go to work.

Better health insurance to lessen the financial blow of the inevitable hit and run.

More time to account for the longer commute. In my case it's 4-6x longer to bike than drive. Time I'm not making any money and time I'm at substantially greater risk of getting seriously injured.

The politics of it certainly do suck. There's too much money pushing for the jobs that our car dependence create.

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.

You are making wild general assumptions about this person's life. Most people in the USA can't really choose where to live, they are forced into a particular zone based on income or some other factor. You are also suggesting that they move from the place that gets snow. This is a ludicrous suggestion and very rude. We can't all live on the beach front property.

Let's be honest, people on HN aren't limited in where they live by poverty.

As I said, it was possible 100 years ago. We -as a society- have brought this rut on ourselves.

I certainly am. I don't understand why everyone here thinks this is a private club for rich investors in silicon valley.

Goodness gracious. You seem to be completely unaware of the lengths average people go to in order to survive.

Here's a thought.

Educated people can simultaneously be impoverished and current on world affairs.

Unfortunately, zoning laws in American cities segregate residential from commercial areas, resulting in transportation problems.

The choice is between living in a decrepit shoebox an hours bike from my job, or living in someone's closet to be within walking distance. I'm a contractor though. I could be sent an hours drive in any direction. How do you suggest I plan for this? Do I buy a house with my nonexistent wealth everywhere I could be asked to work? Do I quit my job and take a massive pay cut to flip burgers so I can bike to my job from the closet said burger flipping affords me?.

Your attribution of choice in this matter is absurd. Maybe you're so lucky and wealthy that you can choose for whom you will work, where/when that work occurs, and how you'll get to work. That's an exceptionally privileged position and you should check your privilege before making such inane assumptive, and accusatory comments as this one.

I read on HN that cars were a silly American thing that Europeans don't need.

As soon as I read the title, I knew the answer. It's because you can no longer buy a "TV set". What you can buy is yet another sort of snooping device, which happens to show TV.

> But the most interesting and telling reason for why TVs are now so cheap is because TV manufacturers have found a new revenue stream: advertising. If you buy a new TV today, you’re most likely buying a “smart” TV with software from either the manufacturer itself or a third-party company like Roku. The cut of the advertising revenue from those pre-installed video channels is big business for actual TV makers, as is the business of selling user viewing data and other information to marketers.

So yet another thing that I will never buy.

you can use TV just as display, that's my primary use of TV, it's just hooked to HDMI cable from laptop, rarely playing some Netflix/Youtube videos to children

you can use whatever is your prefered Android or STB box without ads, just hook it to HDMI and you are done, TV will next time automatically start with selected HDMI output and you will see nothing preinstalled by manufacturer

I do exactly the same thing (apart from desktop vs laptop). Just don't connect TV to the internet, feed it from trusty HDMI input and it will be great value with 0 annoyances.

But if folks are too lazy to launch videos themselves with few clicks then 'you will be served'

On many smart TVs the content you're watching will still be monitored, as automatic content recognition is based on analysing the images being displayed, regardless of source. Blocking that requires isolation from the internet, by simply not setting up the wifi, or using a network level blocker like pi-hole if you still want to use smart features.

Yes I should have mentioned that one too, no internet connection. In my case TV simply works, there is nothing a software update can bring to improve it but plenty to annoy.

Its like an air-gapped notebook with Windows that you only run Notepad. No need to update it with unknown stuff in patches from Microsoft.

OK, but from what I've read, it can still get online if there's an open WiFi AP within range.

You'd need to find the WiFi radio, and physically disable it.

Me, I just buy the largest gaming display that's available. And view videos stored locally. From DVDs or torrents. From a machine that has no internet access. Just ethernet LAN connectivity to an otherwise isolated machine, which is online only via nested VPN chains and Tor.

>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 stream: advertising.

How big can the subsidy possibly be? If Facebook's average revenue per user is $25/year, and a TV lasts 5 years, that's at most $125 of subsidy per TV. It's probably order of magnitudes lower if you factor in costs for running the advertising platform, that you really can't show that many ads as Facebook (it can show a sponsored story every few stories, TV producers can't inject an ad every few minutes), and probably have worse targeting.

Prices for laptops and desktops are way down. Best Buy is selling a core i5, 256 SSD, 8 GB ram Dell laptop for $399 as of this writing. That's plenty of power for most used.

Where prices continue to be high is for business laptops, where people will pay a lot more money for a little bit more performance (and better build quality, lighter weight).

I remember a time when a half decent laptop was $1500.

What's the screen quality on that $400 laptop? Screens, keyboards, trackpads, is how laptops differentiate. The overpowered (thermally throttled) CPUs are just to get the ricers' money.

Past couple of decades? Hardly, prices have gone through the floor in that time. That's not to say more expensive models can't be found just as with TVs but your typical home user computer is most certainly a bargain these days. Enterprise/workstation/gaming are still premium though.

Ad revenue includes preinstalled apps, they are getting upfront money and then income over time. On a product that $300 dollars to the consumer and additional $100 is a huge margin increase to just be blowing off like this.

I just bought an Honor Magicbook for $600 that's plenty powerful for a development laptop. My first development PC (Pentium 166) cost $3500 in the mid 90s, so factor that with inflation.

An entry level laptop was still ~$1000 two decades ago.

https://mobile.twitter.com/akpix/status/551801976267485186

$1200 and $1500 if you don't count the fake savings (mail in rebate and rebate for buying MSN subscription)

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.

I'm not claiming that TV manufacturers don't get some money from rev shares. My point is that it's not money the manufacturer can count on because subscribing or buying extra services is optional for customers on every set that I've seen. The CPM from just displaying ads in a program guide has to be tiny as CPMs for display only is crap everywhere. In my view, that's why some of these UIs have every pixel for sale, it's not highly valued.

For myself and my sample of family and friends, TVs are displays. We buy the screen we want based on size, specs and image quality, we never connect the screen to the internet, run one HDMI into it and control the feed upstream from a cable or satellite box, streaming box (FireTV, AppleTV, etc) or HTPC running something like Plex. As for the remote control, after configuring the screen to HDMI-1 and turning off all the stupid hyped-up color, frame interpolation and other gimmicky modes that try to create pixels that were never in the source signal, I take the batteries back out of the remote and toss it in the box full of all the other unused TV remotes in the basement waiting for when the screen gets donated to a friend or relative in several years (I just had a funny image pop in my head of all those remotes sitting in the box commiserating like the forgotten toys in the attic in Toy Story).

Manufacturers get zero incremental revenue from us. I'm sure they get some rev from some people but it's going to be a blended average with a fair number of zero samples. The reason I think this is I have a little personal experience doing software bundle deals with hardware consumer electronics manufacturers. It was similar in that if consumers bought into the upsell on our apps there was a rev split with the manufacturer. CE manufacturers invariably assigned zero net present value to any theoretical future revenue that isn't guaranteed. They live and die by their quarterly COGS when it hits the dock in Shenzen. I'm not saying their business can't change over time but that's where it's coming from.

And that’s all anecdotal. I posted a citation where Roku is getting literally millions from advertising. If the TV manufacturer gets $25 from Roku that’s 5% of the total cost of $500 65 inch TV.

You don’t have to subscribe to anything for the TV manufacture to make money. When you buy the Roku TV with 4 hardcoded buttons to streaming services that’s $4 by itself. Not to mention that half the home screen on a Roku has advertising and unlike computers they aren’t easily blocked.

CE manufacturers invariably assigned zero net present value to any theoretical

Of course that’s not how it works for any investment. You compare the risk/reward and calculate the expected return and compare it to your risk free rate of return. In the US that is typically the return on government bonds.

That and the TV manufacture selling off your viewing habits :-) There are TV's out there that send screengrabs back to their systems.

> Facebook's average revenue per user is $25/year

The right comparison is probably to US Facebook Revenue and that's on track to exceed $100/person/year for 2019. Globally, $25 does seem to be around the average.

Source: 2019 Q3 FB Earnings Report https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2019/q3...

Disclaimer: FB Employee

"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.

This is getting really hard with some devices. I got a bose soundbar at the start of the year and it comes with a remote that has a few basic features but it is almost impossible to use properly without configuring it via the app and the app demands that you first create an account and then give the device your wifi password.

In the end I eventually caved and installed the app and connected it to the internet to configure and then blocked the device from my router.

> then blocked the device from my router.

Hmm. Thanks.

No worries with sound. There are plenty of audio enthusiasts that will have nothing to do with a system like this and there will always be plenty of options because of them.

I know this isn't your central point, but you should know that a speaker can be used as a microphone, and vice versa. Granted, a speaker won't be a very good microphone, but it is possible one could design an exploit that uses this capability to record audio and send the results off to who knows where.

Assuming the chipset support jack restasking (most don't).

It's unlikely that a basic Bluetooth speaker would even have an ADC to switch to, not to mention speakers without Chromecast-like streaming capabilities probably only have some tiny real-time operating system.

You only need one bit of digital input and oversampling to make for a pretty good ADC.

I doubt that anyone can listen through my old JBLs. Totally analog, back to the preamp input.

The price of dumb TVs has also fallen dramatically.

Can you even get a dumb TV anymore? I found it surprisingly difficult when I replaced mine 2 years ago. So far I've been OK with simply not plugging it into the Internet.

There are certainly dumb displays. You'd have to decide if they have the characteristics that you want.

Yes. Sort of. You can buy a commercial display, the kind used for digital signs. But, those probably cost 10x more than a consumer TV.

Not really, to be honest. I don't consider this 43" 5000:1 2160p 350cd/m^2 screen ( https://iiyama.com/gl_en/products/prolite-le4340uhs-b1/ ) to have a bad price @ 580 EUR. Unfortunately it seems to be limited by 8bit sRGB when it comes to using that contrast. They do have HDR screens though.

Wow maybe this is a US to EU mismatch but I just got a 4K 65” HDR screen for $500 including tax? That seems very expensive by my standards, as $500 ~= €448 and €580 ~= $650

Can confirm, low-end prices for HDR-capable non-OLED (so, worse blacks than higher-end screens but still much better than most of what was typical, say, 10 years ago) 4K screen @ 65" is like $500. Under $400 for 55" and same quality.

Mind you, this is a 18/7 screen with an insane viewing angle. Your eyes do not have that much in-picture dynamic range; you only see it when the content is dim. (I have an older version of this on my desk.)

At Best Buy, their store brand (Insignia) is not "smart". Everything else seems to be.

Piggybacking on this, I contemplating the same problem and was wondering whether I could create a new wifi network which can only access hbo go domains and let the TV use that network only. Is something like this possible without any additional device in the loop? Just tweaking the (ISP) router and forget about it?

Probably not. The HN advice always seems to be to use your ISP-provided device only as a modem and plug a separate router into it. I don't know how many people actually do this in practice - probably the same proportion of vim users who actually have Caps Lock remapped to Escape.

Well, I'm doing this but my Caps Lock is mapped to Control. Anyway, you are probably right, there are dozens of us. On the other hand I've seen couple of discussions here around Ubiquity and MicroTik in consumer environments some maybe it's not that rare.

Wait until these companies partner with Comcast to get default access to the ever present Xfinity public hotspot.

Sure you might deny it privileged to your network but for a profit share I might let it access mine.

I guess alternately you could grant it access to your wifi and block all its traffic.

How does one block the traffic?

Most routers allow some kind of traffic denial, even the home use ones. But I guess you could get a rpi and set it up as a firewall or something

I wouldn’t put it past the TV makers to aggressively evade firewalls, latch on to public WiFi or include a secret cellular modem that they bury in the finest of fine print.

I doubt you'd get a profit share. When the idea of all of those 'CableWiFi' networks started, it was because the cable operators wanted a separate network. It usually runs on a separate circuit so it won't interfere with the customer's bandwidth.

The point they were making was using this cablewifi, tv will be able to send data back without requiring your WiFi password.

One more reason the best neighbors are those that are out of site.

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.

Roku TVs are one of the higher rated smart tv platforms, so is there a difference between plugging in a roku device or just using a roku tv?

Not really. The TVs tend to have more computing power than the lowest-end Rokus too.

The one thing I never understood about this is, aren't you just free to not hookup your TV to the WiFi? I've bought SmartTVs and have just used them as "dumb" TVs and they work perfectly fine. Aren't you there capturing the benefit of this supposedly lower price without having to give up any personal data back?

They're relying on most people being uneducated about how their TV is spying on them.

And even when they find out they don't really have other options without a lot of hassle and research. This is why I think the GDPR was great. Its not just "We are spying on you, if you don't like it then turn off your tv" It requires that you have an option to say no while still using the product/service.

But people want to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime or other stream services. Modern smart TVs have those integrated.

Just get a Chromecast or any other streaming player device and hook it up to the TV with only HDMI. Solved- TV don't need to be able to spy on you.

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

Good to hear. I'm not really a gamer so I haven't followed it that closely although I know a few folks who were very involved with it early on.

The Chromecast model just seems so obviously right for users even if I can understand why the TV manufacturers don't like it.

Do you have a reason to assume that Stadia will be around for a long while?

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

I like it, but it seems very unreliable - I almost always have to disconnect and reconnect my phone to the wifi for it to work

This is not always practical. Either you lay your HDMI cable across the living room, or you have to find a spot for your laptop near the television (not always possible), and then you have to get up and walk to the laptop to change anything.

The Chromecast is a small stick that hangs off the hdmi port. It’s not really plausible for it to not fit in a room layout.

Your last point about walking up to the laptop isn't exactly true.

I've gotten creative with HTPCs doing stuff over ssh. mpv (video player) can be controlled from the shell it's launched from. I just keep a tmux session going and then I can play YouTube videos or stuff off my file server. sshfs for file server access is nice and simple. I use various other computers or my phone to connect and run commands. This also makes it easy for other people to pull up stuff. It runs on a guest account, so I don't mind telling them the password. They can search for a video on their own machine and just paste it into the shell. Since all the normal controls work, you can easily adjust volume, take screenshots, etc.

mpv also works for viewing images, so it's similarly good for showing the room a picture, local or on the web.

The only pain point is when someone really wants to pull up a website in a browser. I've used a bluetooth keyboard adapter, a steam controller, the "xmouse" android app... Things work best when I can handle them via mpv or other terminal stuff, though.

Yes because Google never spys on you...

Haha. That's the actual best part. They have those integrated TODAY. They may not have them tomorrow. And they may not have new streaming services either.

I bought a TV 6.5 years ago that could access a bunch of services, including Hulu. Too bad for me, that's not the case anymore. Many icons are gone, including Hulu's. And Netflix wasn't part of the deal originally, because it was either not here yet or too new, and it still isn't available. I'm not holding my breath for Disney+, whenever it becomes available where I live.

In the laziest, most finicky way possible. Unless you have a Fire Tv or Roku TV, most smart TV 'apps' aren't worth using.

I would imagine that the TV manufacturers get paid per unit sold with the ad-serving software installed, in addition to ad views.

And as long as they don't try to connect to any public wifi they see...

https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/network/map?zip=87111

That link has your ZIP in it, if you weren’t aware.

It's not mine it's just my city

I like to use 10001 for this. It's valid, populated, easy to remember, and not 90210.

Oh that is a good one. Thank you for that. As an over seas person I otherwise just search for a company's own american zip code and give it back to them since surely their employees are using it as well and it must be valid.

Scroll just west of here (not my zip) ... what's that clump in the ocean? https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/network/map?zip=92008

I just purchased a 55" 4K LG TV from Costco for under $400 out the door. The TV's sole purpose is to display an Apple TV's output, and will not be connected to the internet. Interestingly, it has AirPlay and Homekit built-in, but that's largely irrelevant due to the Apple TV.

This TV is replacing a 46" ~10yo Samsung purchased for over 1.1k that has very basic "Smart" capabilities like playing MKV files from a USB drive and network, which in my opinion is when smart TVs peaked.

It's probably an edge lit TV. FALDs are more expensive.

Array LED backlighting can be had for under $500. I purchased a 55" 4k Vizio for under $500 3 years ago which I promptly returned when the included remote did not let me adjust the TV's settings, they expected me to download an app.

My only criteria for the replacement TV is that it have better picture quality than the 10yo Samsung it is replacing.

I know that Ethernet over HDMI is a thing, I wonder, if the device you are plugging into your smart TV is connected to the internet, could the TV piggyback of that for an internet connection?

Maybe not right now, but when smart TV manufacturers realize people just aren't connecting them to the internet, might they push Sony/Apple etc to implement such a thing.

> 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 discouraged now. Then dealerships in general people don't like or even lie to people, I guess one told someone they were required to fill out a credit application by law even if it doesn't get processed... So if your credit union or your own bank got you financing, then want to try to undercut that. Then heard some dealership someone was looking at new cars thinking of trading their car in, but changed their mind but the dealer kept their keys a little longer trying to keep them there. Seems like walking into a dealership is getting into a hostage situation.

People are just putting everything on credit, a car they probably shouldn't of bought and sits parked most of the time, people refinance their mortgages over and over again so they'll probably never end up paying off their house. It's insane how much debt is pushed... and also seems easier to get into student debt than getting loans to start a small business.

Seems like the priorities are all off anymore and they want everyone to be in debt. Then people with poor credit might end up paying double or more the value of the car, someone I knew bought a used car and was going to end up paying 4x the value of it... and then in some parts of the country if you don't have a car, you don't have a job unless you live in one of the big cities with public transport. Some areas don't even have sidewalks either, and some people have attitudes against cyclists too since they paid more for their car or SUV so they feel more entitled to the road. I guess whoever has the best car is some sort of contest, but I can see why it draws people in. Someone I know has got a new car every few years, now regrets doing that since so much money they could of had saved up now.

Dealerships generally can't conduct a real credit check unless you give them an SSN. You can absolutely still pay cash for a vehicle if you have it, but with interest rates so low right now it's wiser for most consumers with good credit to stay liquid.

Yeah figured they need an SSN, but remember last time I was looking it up someone claimed there's some way to run credit with a driver license... Which they make a copy of before a test drive.

Not sure how true but I know there's some companies like LexisNexis with massive databases on people, so wouldn't surprise me if there's some some other way to gather info on people.

Then I heard some luxury dealerships can be jerks if they don't like the way you dress either... Yet in some areas with major tech like Silicon Valley, Miami or Austin there are probably young people with millions wearing just a shirt and shorts buying new sports cars.

Insurance companies can run a sort of mini credit score with just a name and address. It doesn’t show up as a credit inquiry and has a more limited set of details about each item.

If you save you have options. If you have options you can tell employers to stick it somewhere.

Why do you think healthcare is tied to your job even though it costs around twice as much to the employer as any comparative system in the developed world?

A few years ago my parents walked in to a Toyota dealership to buy a new Camry with cash. They were talked into financing it, bought it, then got home and realized they should have just paid cash. The next day they went back to the dealership to pay it off and the guy who gave them the loan was a huge asshole to them the whole time.

Why would they go to the dealership to pay the loan off?

There’s usually a grace period to return the car.

That’s seems odd.

Sometimes you get a better price when you get financing.

So you get financing, then pay the loan off the next month. And you pay it to the lender, not the dealership.

My local Ford dealer would not even talk about the price of a used car until filled out paperwork and they ran a credit check without asking.

That would be annoy me. I wish there wasn't a monopoly on new car sales. But I wonder if places like CarMax are better even though they can only sell used cars. Never been to one but see their commercials. Kinda like a mall for cars instead of a specific brand.

Seems like medical and health stuff, and car buying there's no pricing transparency and you are pushed around. I'm glad buying other stuff isn't as bad though, imagine if buying toilet paper or a laptop required negotiating.

I hope you walked away. I would.

My impression based on car loans that I have had is that they usually have an interest rate significantly below a random bank. That's presumably not magic; it's just that they are subsidizing the loans in lieu of a discount. So if you pay cash, you should realize there is a hidden cost to factor in.

Dealerships incentivize people to take up loans by giving bigger rebates on financing.

You can take advantage of that. After all the price negotiation is done when I buy a car, I would ask the salesperson for the rebates on financing. Usually they have $0 for the all-cash deal, $X for 0% rate loan, $Y for 2%, $Z for 5% loan, where X < Y < Z. I would take the worst loan with the biggest rebate, acting like a dumb customer.

Then on the first loan payment, pay off the whole thing. Just be sure there's no prepayment penalty.

> Just be sure there's no prepayment penalty.

There usually is one, but it's still worth doing that.

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.

Exactly the reason why I wish Apple introduce Apple TV Set. Or partner with LG where they sell the panel with a cable attached to Apple TV.

Instead we now have AppleTV App that lives inside the Android TV ecosystem, and requires Internet connection which automatically sends data to who knows where.

And I dont like having two remote to control my TV.

> And I dont like having two remote to control my TV.

If your devices support HDMI-CEC[1] — my new-ish TV does, as does a Yamaha receiver I purchased several years ago — your Apple TV (and therefore its remote) can control everything.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control

CEC is flaky though. Not everything is compatible. There’s little good documentation. It breaks randomly without obvious causes or predictable fixes.

If Apple made a box or a set of them with a proprietary interface that competes with CEC I would buy in a heartbeat.

CEC is working well at my house. But for six months earlier this year, the Apple TV remote could no longer power up the sound bar. One day it started working again. But I live in fear of the call from my wife when it just stops working entirely and she can’t figure out how to turn the TV on, much less the sound system.

Speaking as someone who has recently been involved with a very wide-scale project using CEC (demo units for a major retailer here in the UK) I concur - CEC is incredibly unreliable.

My project ran on a very limited range of hardware from a well-known high end manufacturer. I imagine it's even worse "in the wild".

I'm a bit skeptical that the income from the tracking/advertising makes up for such a large drop in price.

I'm sure they'll try to convince us that it does, so that we don't resist the tracking too much.

TV's have been dropping in price for of 70 years. There's no conspiracy.

Here's someone who made a list -

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/why-is-tech-getting-c...

https://imgur.com/gallery/W3ouE

Every year everyone gets richer and better off, although it'd be nicer if the true poor got a little more sped up.

> it'd be nicer if the true poor got a little more sped up.

on a side note, that the poor are getting sped up is why there is so much migration going on. When they get a little money, they are no longer content to stay where they are, and they rather migrate to richer countries due to lack of opportunities at home.

Hence, a future with fewer poor, will lead to huge social unrest in the currently rich countries.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1049641

I wonder if we'll see a similar trend for speakers as they integrate with Google Home and Alexa.

Currently people are willing to pay for virtual assistants but in the near future subsidization is inevitable as the data collection and advertising opportunities are too great.

Pretty cool article and highlights the problem of Smart TVs well. I don't think I'll ever get a smart TV but I'm privileged in this because my husband is fine with watching movies on a PC monitor and we don't plan to have kids so it's not like we'll have someone in the house clamoring for Disney+ on a separate big screen. Most households cave eventually because, admittedly, it's sweet to get a huge screen with excellent picture quality for just a few hundred.

My one gripe with the article itself is the introduction: "I’ve noticed something exciting but sort of crazy". Claiming that TV prices dropping fast is 'crazy' seems a bit funny. Prices drop for a lot of stuff though, I suppose, some technology does stay in the same relative range. But it's probably only until it reaches a certain quality point past which there's not much to entice customers into high-end purchases.

You can get a smart TV and just not connect it to the internet. Even lobotomized like this, they still work fine as normal TVs.

You can also get a smart device (Roku, Amazon Fire, etc.) and hook that up to any TV to stream things (including Disney+). You can also just hook that computer up and it would work as well (a TV is just a big monitor with sound).

So there is no need to ever "cave", even if you want streaming on a big screen and don't want a smart TV.

You can also get a smart device (Roku, Amazon Fire, etc.) and hook that up to any TV

Why should that device have any less spying or ads?

Thanks, I was starting to think I was going crazy.

I was pointed out that they had options. Not what they should do to avoid spying.

Well, I don't see much reason to get a smart TV if I won't be using it as a smart TV. Both people in the household are fine watching on a medium-sized screen, why spend $300-400 just to watch on a bigger one with no other benefits? Maybe once they become just ridiculously cheap, yeah.

So far, TCL has provided a way to turn off the internal Roku...

https://support.tclusa.com/televisions-setup-configurations/...

Vizio snooping system:

ACR collects data related to publicly available content displayed on your television/display, such as the identity of your broadcast, cable, or satellite television provider, and the television programs and commercials viewed (including time, date, channel, and whether you view them live or at a later time) . We also collect unique identifiers about this TV, including the IP address. This data is collectively referred to as “Viewing Data .” ... When ACR collection is turned on, we may share Viewing Data with authorized data partners including analytics companies, media companies and advertisers. VIZIO and its authorized data partners use Viewing Data to generate summary analysis and reports of how users engage with content on their TVs and other devices. VIZIO Viewing Data is sometimes enhanced with household demographic data and data about digital actions (e.g. digital purchases and other consumer behavior taken by devices associated with the IP Address we collect). Viewing Data also enables our authorized data partners to deliver advertising relevant to your profile that you might find useful, both on the VIZIO TV/display and other devices sharing your IP Address. Viewing Data is also used to help content publishers, broadcasters or content distribution services create or recommend more relevant entertainment based on summary insights, as well as helps us improve the design of our products, software and services . You can easily turn this feature On or Off in the RESET & ADMIN menu. If you have trouble enabling or disabling Viewing Data, please contact VIZIO Customer Support by going to support.vizio.com ...

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 noticed. I'm cool with this trade.

> 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.

Ahem...

https://www.ft.com/content/23ab2f68-d957-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/18/you-wat... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/19/samsung-s... https://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-warning-our-smart-tvs-rec... https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/02/some-apps-were-listening-t... https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/your-... https://www.howtogeek.com/338409/hundreds-of-smartphone-apps...

and so on...

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 likely manufacturer support for the device's software. This means you will end up with an insecure unpatched device connected to your home network.

Both these problems are resolved with a 'dumb' TV/Display, to which you connect your media center of choice.

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.

Roku is probably the least evil of the smart tvs.

I don't doubt what you say is true in the US retail landscape. Although the HW will work anywhere, Roku as a service is very much a US centric business.

At least in Europe the options out of the box integrated in these 'smart' TVs are either Android or some OEM crippled flavour of a nix distro.

Also we need to distinguish between released set top boxes from a triple-play provider, and these 'inside' the TV half-baked software releases.

Netflix is going to know what I watch no matter what device I use

Sure, Netflix is going to know what you watch on Netflix, but do you really Roku and Sony to know too?

my TV is probably the most private way for me to watch a streaming service since it knows basically nothing else about me

It may know your email address from your Netflix login when you log in to Netflix from your TV, your TV could send its serial number, Netflix could sell your identity to the TV maker.

Or if you use an app to set up your TV, they could get your identity from that.

Or, worst case, they can probably figure out who you are from your IP address.

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”.

> If you buy a new TV today, you’re most likely buying a “smart” TV with software from either the manufacturer itself or a third-party company like Roku. The cut of the advertising revenue from those pre-installed video channels is big business for actual TV makers, as is the business of selling user viewing data and other information to marketers.

Is there a good open source smart tv firmware?

1. Buy any affordable TV with a good panel

2. Disable WiFi on the TV or block it at the network level

3. Install Kodi on an old laptop or RPi. Serve cold over HDMI & prosper.

> 3. Install Kodi on an old laptop or RPi. Serve cold over HDMI & prosper.

4. Make sure it's an Rpi4, or the laptop's not too old, if you plan to play H.265 (HEVC) content, so you've got hardware decoding for it.

What I'd like to do is install Kodi on the TV.

There is one for Samsung TVs:

https://www.samygo.tv/

I have a 43" Panasonic plasma TV, which has THX certified display panel. Paid about 800USD for it back 2013 I believe. I'd like to replace it with a LCD one, but oh boy how much do the THX certified ones cost - https://www.thx.com/product-finder/

Considering all but 3 of the 4k certified panels are Panasonic I think you're looking at the cost of panels from Panasonic that pay for the particular certification rather than looking at the cost of high end panels overall.

THX is just for sound, right? Why not buy a cheaper TV and a separate certified speaker set?

They have certifications for full home theatre including video (panels & projectors) but you're paying more for the THX logo than for a guarantee you actually bought the best option for the price since hardly anybody pays for the cert.

What does THX certified actually do for you on such a small screen?

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.

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 that its just so much simpler to buy a tv thats just a dumb screen and plug in a smart layer on top via hdmi.

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.

I've never had to do that, guests get access to the playback controls while on my network and are completely free to use their own phone to cast something else to my TV if they wish. What they don't get access to is my own media library.

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.

He mentioned cars. Can't wait until personalized ads show up in cars.. "visit McDonald's drivethrough in 0.5 miles, buy your favorite, the McRib(TM), and get a free drink with code xyz! Only 2 minute detour and the drivethrough currently has 2 cars in it!". And it will have user profiles and knows the driver's gender, etc, and shopping preferences. Child seat fitted since 2 months but weight sensor suggests no child on-board? "Discount at Walmart for new parents! For example diapers 20 pieces for 5 dollars! Come on by and have a relaxing shopping experience without the need to baby-wrangle!"

Doesn't this already exist in Google Maps and/or Waze?

Tesla already does that where you can let Tesla suggest activities like where to eat, movies to watch, fun places to be in your particular location.

I can imagine a future where these suggestions get wrapped in SPONSORED CONTENT.

Gas pumps all seem to have video ads now.

Which is super annoying. They are really loud and hard to "ignore". I do my best to ignore them.

You're not only buying a TV nowadays, you're buying a portal/frontend to goods and services that earns the TV manufacturers a comission for your use and data.

I remember we payed 300 quid for a 26" color TV in 1976.

We inherited ours, it drew 500W according to the spec, I suspect it was worse than that. The next one was 150W. The current one is down to 65W and doesn’t even register on my meter on standby.

Looks like it'll be 300 smackeroos for a mid-range TV for some time.

It's just the definition of mid-range that shifts - heading to 50" LCD nowadays it seems ...

A 27” inch CRT had fallen in price to about $300 15 years ago or so. Then the flatscreens came and the price pressure cycle had to start over again.

I'm waiting for HDMI cartel (run by major TV makers) to stop poisoning devices with HDMI. Time to adopt DisplayPort everywhere.

I don't like HDMI either, but I want Digi-RGB + analog audio + IMIDI (each on a separate cable).

Still, stuff such as DisplayPort is at least better than HDMI, I suppose.

I suppose something even more advanced like USB4 can bundle it all if needed.

My own idea is to define a standard arrangement of the connectors, and allow the cables to be clipped together; the user can then clip or unclip them if wanted. That way you have the advantages of both: having separated cables, and having all stuff in one cable.

You will be waiting a long time.

Someone will break up that collusion eventually. There is no need to pay those parasitic fees that they keep HDMI around for.

Could you explain why DP is so much better?

1. When making devices with DP, you don't need to pay for patents, unlike in case of HDMI where you need to pay the parasitic HDMI cartel for devices produced with it.

2. DP is more advanced technology, since it's using packet design (network protocol like), rather than simply a digital signal. So it allows what HDMI can't, for example driving several devices through one cable.

My TV will never be on my network. I will actively seek out, and pay a premium for a "dumb" TV.

I do not understand why the prices of these have not fallen to $0, in much the same way an inktjet printer has. Or why the TV does not come as a freebie with some kind of (cable, otherwise) content subscription.

(Disclaimer: I hate “smart” TVs)

There are definitely cable bundles that include a tv in some places at least. The value of cable is now so far in the negative for a lot of people though that you'd need to be giving them a hell of a tv to justify it. :P

Because the spying and advertising isn't worth that much?

Printers didn’t need the spying?

Printers get you on the ink, and the terrible driver software, and maybe an ink subscription. And the support contract.

This is my point: printers started off expensive, then lower costs due to manufacturing efficiencies/scale, but then ultimately drop to effectively $0 due to business models shifting. It's a fair assumption to make that a similar thing would happen to TV's but it doesn't look like it has?

Have you ever tried to sell a TV? Much like diamonds or cars, it seems that a lot of their value derives from the "primary-market freshness guarantee." For base-model TVs, the secondary-market price (e.g. the one you'd get at a pawn shop) is essentially zero.

People aren't really buying base-model TVs, though. Who wants a 30" 30Hz 720p non-HDR display (let alone an old CRT or plasma TV), even for free? "I'd rather watch shows on my phone than on that piece of junk" is a pretty common thing to hear when someone is being offered one of these.

And so we still see, not only the primary-market markup effects, but also the "leading edge" markup effects, where having to have all the best features (larger size, 4K, HDR, 144Hz, OLED, curved display, etc.) that you don't have to have, makes the TV more expensive. (But not that much more expensive. Even with both of these markups, the average "good enough to watch anything without downsampling" TV is still only $500.)

> Who wants a 30" 30Hz 720p non-HDR display (let alone an old CRT or plasma TV), even for free? "I'd rather watch shows on my phone than on that piece of junk" is a pretty common thing to hear when someone is being offered one of these.

That's exactly the kind of TV (and somewhat better, actually) that you can thrift or find on Craigslist for free or so-cheap-it's-almost-free.

I remember when Curtis-Mathis advertised that they sold "the most expensive television set you can buy, and darn well worth it."

I doubt anyone else remembers that, though :-)

the article doesn't even make sense, 43" for 500USD was not cheap in 2016, I was furbishing new apartment and paid 500EUR for 55" 4K TV in expensive Europe, the article is not specific to US, prices of TV and consumer electronics are falling everywhere in world

Does anybody know a honey pot to make those smart TVs connect to something that will silence them?

I have a giant TCL Roku TV, and it's amazing. One remote for everything. Highly recommended.

I bought a 58" inch tv from Walmart for $279 before tax. Works very well.

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