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Comment by dewey | Hacker News Reader

Because most people (HN is not a representative sample set) are not willing to pay the real price of a TV if it wouldn't be subsidized by adtech.

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TVs were unsubsidized by ad tech up until 10 years ago, and I’m pretty sure most people bought TVs back then.

I'm not sure the adtech is even enough to subsidize the price in a meaningful way.

Google’s global ad revenue equates to roughly $61 per user per year, most TV manufacturers would be unable to extract that much out per user, even with crazy levels of tracking, ads, etc.

I haven't used a modern TV in a very long time, but I can't imagine LG is extracting over $20 in ad revenue/data revenue per year. It might move the needle on <$500 displays, but when LG displays costing over $5,000 still have this spyware its hard to defend.

What makes you think LG would not be hitting the Google numbers (Instagram ad-free is ~$6 / month for example, roughly the same ballpark)? A device that's connected to a high speed internet connection, often allowed to do background tasks and being able to track all data being consumed through it (Streaming services, gaming etc.) is extremely valuable.

Indeed, many of these TVs serve ads by default on their screensavers and home screens.

It's been a very long time since they were given an option.

Aren't consumer class dumb TVs gone?

Yes, that's kind of the point. If you have the choice between $500 black rectangle and $1000 black rectangle where the only difference is some boring privacy policy details most people will go with option 1.

The companies that make these TVs love that we are this point since they can now take away the subsidy, and you also coincidentally now have no option to buy a non-smart TV, so they are now collecting $ from both the purchase and from the ads. Tada! Grossness all around.

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