TVs are sold on refresh rate, color accuracy, contrast, backlight localization, and panel resolution. This stuff is written on the box and promoted in marketing material. They are unavoidably differentiated on technical specs, even in the eyes of a layperson. Some of those specs depend on the panel (itself a semiconductor product) and others depend on processors/ICs.

I'm not suggesting that no parts can ever be a commodity (like capacitors in a laptop), but as I spend more, I increasingly tend to look for a technical advantage that justifies the marginal price.

I'll give you an example. If you want to buy a docking station for an Apple TB3 enabled MacBook, you have a couple of controller options at the higher end: Alpine Ridge and Titan Ridge. Better chips exist but they haven't found their way into truly well engineered consumer docks. I have a multi monitor setup with one superultrawide screen that can do 120Hz, so I opted for the Titan Ridge dock. It was buggy, so I ended up returning it and buying an Alpine Ridge dock that lacks the ability to push my big monitor at its best-looking resolution. And that's for a sub-$300 peripheral.

Like most of us here on HN, I'm one of the "few" that GP mentioned. But these are consumer products and they are mass marketed based on their technical specs.

Apple itself markets technical innovations in its 6k IPS monitors. The back is designed to dissipate heat, the monitor works with TB3 (ie, an Intel chip)...they even market the glass treatment in a deeply specific way.