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Comment by ksec | Hacker News Reader

The correct headline should be Vizio makes more money by selling ads than selling TV themselves.

We are only a month to 2022. This shouldn't even be a news headline. There are also plenty of other TV brands that does something similar. It is the whole reason why you can buy a 4K 55" TV for a $~450.

And a lot of people knows this. So for the past few years it turns out plenty of people are willing to sell their watching habits for a cheaper TV. Unfortunately TV business in itself is a low margin business. Unless Apple decide to do something about it I dont think there are any company that could change the game much if at all.

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> And a lot of people knows this. So for the past few years it turns out plenty of people are willing to sell their watching habits for a cheaper TV.

Because every TV has all the ways it spies on you listed as prominently as the price? And there's a near identical model for sale next to it, without the spying-enabled discounts?

Framing this as consumer choice implies consumers were informed and given a choice, but they were neither.

Perhaps something I actually appreciate about Amazon's devices. At least their Kindles with ads. They give you a choice between seeing ads, and not seeing them, and put a price on it. If ad revenue is a meaningful amount of the price of a new TV, then I'd definitely like the option to buy one with all of it disabled (with a permanent legal guarantee to back it up).

Your point is generally valid, in that the price of selling advertisements and data is factored into the cost of TVs. But, in case you or anyone else despairs of buying a reasonably priced "dumb tv": you can still buy a 55" 4K TV with no spyware and no apps for $450 or less. For example, the Sceptre U558CV-UMC is $400 at that large online retailer from Seattle. I own the 65" version, and it's fantastic.

The problem as I see it is that if you really want a dumb TV, you generally have to settle for an off-brand, or lower quality, smaller, or older. Hisense has a 75 inch option on the rtings list that is rated fairly well, but what do I know about Hisense? Sony has one ad-free TV on the list but it's several years old now. Most of the rest are Vizio, ironically. And why should I trust them not to send out an update that changes the behavior of the TV to include ads?

Okay, so what's the catch? If other manufacturers rely on the spyware and ads to finance the business, which is how they are able to sell such a high spec TV for $450, how is that vendor able to sell such a TV for $400 with no spyware and ads? Not a rhetorical question; I'm actually curious how they make it work.

Do lots of people know this?

TVs get magically cheaper, is anyone asking why? They just buy it.

It's not on the box. It's not on the price sticker.

They could make tube tellies for peanuts given mass production. And I would suspect the same is true for LCDs, and even oleds given time. A rasp pi can be had for under £10. The packaging, manual, and remote becomes the expensive part. Not including r and d, support etc. But a move to open electronics/software could help here.

They have even ripped amps and speakers out of units, so they can monetize soundbars.

I had read that Google subsidized android devices, something like £30 a piece. So understand there is additional value in data sells. Edit: It may not have been android, but nokia's fork of Firefoxos on something like the banana phone.

When I tell people that their TVs are spying on them, they usually either don’t believe me because they think it would be illegal, or are shocked and upset

> So for the past few years it turns out plenty of people are willing to sell their watching habits for a cheaper TV.

The problem is that when it's endemic and not clearly labeled is that paying more may not do any good. Companies are very happy to charge you more to pretend you get something extra.

> It is the whole reason why you can buy a 4K 55" TV for a $~450.

How are you so sure?

For example, if a TV has $15 of profit on the hardware and $30 of profit from ads, then you'd still see ~$450 models if you removed the ads and increased the price.

I didn't know it and i wouldn't have guessed it was worth this much.

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