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They are all smart, because that is actually cheaper. The manufacturers earn money on selling what your view, ads and selling subscriptions. And they make more
by kmonsen 6y ago
They are all smart, because that is actually cheaper. The manufacturers earn money on selling what your view, ads and selling subscriptions. And they make more on this than it costs to make the TV "smart". There was a Vergecast with the Vizio CEO and he said this is the new business model. Notice that both Samsung and Sony are testing with ads on the homescreen, if those two are willing to do this as premium brands you can be sure everyone else will try as well.
- stephen_g 6y agoThe cost to make the TV smart is almost nothing (the software would cost a bit, but from every smart TV I've seen not as much as it should because it's always pretty crappy and janky). The additional BOM cost would be a few dollars at the quantity they make these things in for an ARM SoC and some RAM. I really think he's massively exaggerating. His statements might be more rationalisation because people hate it, but they just want to squeeze more money out of people. But I can't believe that showing some ads and fingerprinting content would net them more than $100 over the life of an average TV. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would pay more than that for a no-ads, no network connection required version.