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Comment by 0xcde4c3db | Hacker News Reader

I don't think you're mistaken about the big-picture situation, but if you want to focus on models with a bit less "TV DNA" in them, it might be interesting to browse through [1].

[1] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/products/digital-signage-moni...

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At a glance, those prices are straight-up horrible in comparison to a consumer model. How much revenue is the Smart-we-upload-everything consumer model generating? I would have thought tens-of-dollars at most.

My non-expert impression is that it's mostly a matter of consumer-oriented product lines facing more competitive pressure on price than business-oriented product lines. To put it another way, the consumer product lines don't have ads and spyware because those make a lot of money, but because vendors need to fight tooth-and-claw for every dollar of margin in that market.

When you have less than a handful of companies creating the products there is no effective competitive pressure.

They control future supply which raises or lowers the price at their whim. The feature-set needed to get money from spyware is not mutually exclusive. Its a value, no-cost added to improve profit.

That's all the business people see, and Accurint is more than happy to pay with those government funds to enable historic lookups of your behavior in your private home sans court.

They'll last much longer than the $400 Samsung from Costco

At those prices I could buy the Costco special 2x and might still come out ahead.

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