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Comment by manuelabeledo | Hacker News Reader

I keep seeing people who argue that TVs would be notably "more expensive" if they didn't come with ads.

Let's say that the average Samsung TV costs $1,000, ad revenue per person is around $30 a year, and the average lifespan of a TV is 10 years. I own a Samsung TV since 2016. I think they may have pushed 5 firmware updates since then.

There is no way I can be convinced that Samsung needs to increase the price of TVs by 20%. Also, if that's the difference, why can't I just pay more and opt out? And why are other users in other countries not being shown ads?

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> why can't I just pay more and opt out

Because they one day realised they can make you pay more and show you ads to get both of the moneys

Honestly this is why I fully back adblockers of all kinds. Companies associated with ad tech would do much worse if they thought they could get away with it

That is exactly what happened with cable TV. Their main selling point was no commercials because you were paying for it. Now just sitting down and watching something on cable is a chore. I gave up and built my own library of things to watch. Was visiting some family and was watching a marathon of some show. It was the same 10 commercials over and over. Each break was usually 3-5 mins long. It was a good reminder of why I buy my own media.

I really can’t understand it. When I visit family/hotels with cable, its absolutely unwatchable even for free - paying for it is unbelievable to me.

People who could afford to opt-out have more money than people who can't, and are thus more attractive to advertisers. They want/need you in the consumer pool.

I keep seeing people who argue that TVs would be notably "more expensive" if they didn't come with ads.

Yeah, ad revenue couldn't possibly be just "found revenue" to layer on top of existing profits. Why folks are so willing to carry water for corporations, by making unsubstantiated excuses for them, mystifies me.

> Why folks are so willing to carry water for corporations, by making unsubstantiated excuses for them, mystifies me.

Because if you don't keep making excuses for them, you're left with the alternative: doing a bunch more work yourself, which many people don't find remotely enjoyable.

Which reminds me, I need to go and try installing Axolotl on my PinePhone again :)

> Because if you don't keep making excuses for them, you're left with the alternative

Well, except for the alternative of not watching content with excessive ads at all. If companies feel like they need intrusive ads I guess I they can do that, but they are dead to me and my life is better for it.

You do know how much tracking goes on right? It's far from just a matter of paying for ad free content. Hence I'm trying to migrate to PinePhone and get the hell off Android.

> I keep seeing people who argue that TVs would be notably "more expensive" if they didn't come with ads.

In a competitive market, you can certainly imagine a situation where this would be true. Competition should drive prices as low as they can go, and if manufacturers make money from ads, they can afford to not make a profit off hardware (and maybe even sell it at a loss).

In which case, the questions are:

1) Is this a trade-off we're okay with? (Advertisements and privacy violations in exchange for cheaper televisions.)

2) How can we support a business environment that leads to this outcome?

We ought to focus on #2 anyway, for all sorts of reasons.

For #1, I think it's fairly easy to say "no, everyone should have a guaranteed right to privacy", but as a fairly well-off person, I'm not sure I'm comfortable making that decision for everyone else.

> I keep seeing people who argue that TVs would be notably "more expensive" if they didn't come with ads.

Even if that were true, it ignores a very important question - where does that ad money come from?

Companies buy ads (to get you to spend money on something you don't need, or due to an arms race with their competitors, fighting over a limited market) with money the get from consumers, that pay more for their products.

All ads "contribute" to society is change in consumer behavior, that is ultimately paid by those same consumers. Even ignoring that behavior change, consumers are, on the whole, financially hurt, not helped, by ads.

I hate (and block) ads everywhere I can, but if we take your numbers as a starting point, doesn't that $30/yr translate to an extra $300 for Samsung in those 10 years, a 30% boost in their income on the sale of your TV? My naive assumption is that they make more money on ads in the short run, which is why they're doing it. But they may (should!) lose money in the long run if competitors can sell ad-free alternatives at a decent price...

I think one thing to watch out for is revenue vs profits. So while it might be more revenue, the ad system needs infrastructure, developers, troubleshooting, sales department, etc, etc.

So I'd be really curious how this equates to the profit on the TV, and how much those costs can be amortized between the install base vs actual revenue per user.

At previous company (wireless telco), while not the same thing, we had the intercepting DNS that everyone hates, for typo'd queries redirect to our own search page. I asked one time how much we make in the ad revenue on that, and the basic napkin math was that we were probably losing money. Just the amount of time, complaints, maintenance, keeping it running, etc burned hundreds of hours a year. But it was buried in other budgets so the company thought they were making money.

Even then I don't know how they justified it, it was peanuts compared to mainline revenue.

Absolutely - it wouldn't surprise me at all if it's a money-losing proposition for Samsung, you'd hope that someone, somewhere in their Accounting dept. might notice that as well...

Users of TVs, wow. I remember when they were not more difficult to use than a door bell.

I'm always more convinced that I'll end up with a monitor, a Raspberry, a stereo speaker and possibly a DVBT decoder.

Do you know of a place to get an OLED (or better) 60inch 4k monitor that's a reasonable price?

To be fair, I never thought about that: my current TV is 1080p 32 inches and I'm looking at it from a couple of meters. I wouldn't know where to place something twice as wide as that. Anyway, it's still OK and I hope I don't need a new one soon but I'll check the prices. Thanks.

Where can I get a monitor that's as good as consumer TVs?

You can't get a monitor that is good at being a TV, as TVs are. You also can't get a TV that is as good at being a monitor, as a monitor is. At competitive prices of course. They are designed for different things.

>Also, if that's the difference, why can't I just pay more and opt out?

Because people who are willing to pay to get rid of ads are even more valuable to advertisers. If the average lifetime revenue per user is $300, the average revenue per user who wants to pay to get rid of ads might be $500. If that's the case the manufacturer would need to charge you $500 just to be even.

The ad revenue is all profit, though. I have no idea what the bill-of-materials is on a Samsung TV, but hardware generally doesn't have as good profit margins as software for obvious reasons. If they are doubling their profits, I mean, I don't like it but I see why they're doing it.

> why can't I just pay more and opt out?

Because they probably did market research and found that ~nobody would pay what it was actually worth, and it would generate negative press.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to think that they are trying to exploit this particular ad market, without lowering the markup on their hardware?

Samsung TVs are not cheaper than the competition. In fact, their mid and high tiers are expensive, compared to LG. On the low tier, other brands like TLC or Vizio are still cheaper.

They could make them even more expensive without the spying features. But nobody would pay for it.

Right, the market for a totally elastic good would clear at a higher price if this one set of idiots didn’t sell ads. Definitely makes sense.

Amazon does it with their Kindle line. It’s not something unheard of.

I bought a $3500 Samsung TV. I realize that's an outlier. But I'd happily have paid $3600 not to have to worry about this.

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