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Relevant: "There's a simple reason your new smart TV was so affordable: It's collecting and selling your data, and serving you ads" (2019) https://www.businessinsider.com/smart-tv-data-collection-adv...



The headline is not true.

> Without that revenue stream, Baxter said, consumers would be paying more up front. "We'd collect a little bit more margin at retail to offset it," he said.

A little bit.

The value of that tracking is worth a lot to a company making near-zero margins, but it's not a very big impact on the full price.


TCL said they're now making more money with tracking than with sold TVs. Just as comparison.


But still somewhere in the single digit percent, I think.

The march of technology is responsible for almost all of the cheapness of TVs, and niche commercial targeting is responsible for the non-cheapness of other TVs.

Hisense has a $430 TV comparable to that $2200 model but with better color. Tracking, I dunno, might be $50.




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