If you're old enough, you might remember all the hype around HDTVs when they first came out
in the late 1990s and how expensive they were. In fact, the cheapest model you could get at first
would set you back $8,000. But nowadays, you can get an HDTV that's over 40 inches for under
$250. And not only that, but they take up far less space and have connectivity features unheard of
back in the late 90s. So how the heck have TVs gotten so darn cheap anyway?
One part of it is that as electronics have become more and more common in everyday life,
the average consumer has gotten wise to the early adopter tax, where new technologies are
nearly always more expensive shortly after they've just come out. This means consumers often
strategically wait for prices to come down to buy new electronics, which actually lowers demand
for the stuff and forces prices down in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, manufacturers
couldn't actually lower prices if the screens were still super expensive to make,
but fortunately, this isn't the case anymore. As it is with many things, manufacturers optimize
their processes as time goes on. And in the case of LCD screens, they're now printed on much larger
machines than they were back in the 1990s. This means just one piece of equipment can make the
panels for a large number of devices, making them much cheaper to produce in bulk. For example,
the new Gen10 Plus manufacturing process uses a sheet of glass that's just under 10 square meters,
and the dimensions are such that exactly 8 65-inch TVs can be produced from it with no wasted material.
Combined with tighter quality control that's been helped along by advances in the materials,
even large panels can be made relatively cheaply from these giant pieces of mother glass.
Speaking of the panels themselves, you may have noticed that when you go into your local
big-box electronics store, many of the TVs you see don't really look that different from one another.
Obviously, you can pay a premium for technologies like OLED, Quantum Dot, or Mini-LED, but it's
getting to the point where it's difficult for TVs to differentiate themselves from one another
based on picture quality. The initial leap from standard-def to high-def was a huge deal,
and the difference in picture quality was clear as night and day to the average consumer.
But these days, much of the underlying tech is very similar between models.
You have an LCD panel with an LED backlight operating at a resolution of 1080p or 4K depending
on the content. And for the average user, this is more or less good enough in the sense that
advancements in picture quality over the years haven't resulted in some huge C change that has
everyone rushing to get some hot new style of TV. I mean, it's still extremely difficult to receive
cable or satellite broadcasts in 4K, partly because there isn't a huge amount of demand for it.
And HDR has not spurred huge demand for more expensive TVs either. All this means that instead
of trying to compete primarily on picture quality, manufacturers are now competing on price.
But there's still a huge piece of the puzzle missing. Have you wondered why nearly every
new TV these days, even a cheap one, is a smart TV? This isn't just because TV manufacturers
want to give you extra features out of the goodness of their little hearts. No,
many of the various streaming services available on smart TVs share revenue that they get from
advertising with the manufacturers. And on top of that, the manufacturers often collect data
themselves, then they sell that on to both marketers and to streaming services so that
they can get a better picture of people's viewing habits. This creates a situation where
manufacturers can make more money off of the way people use their TVs than they do off the TVs
themselves, especially when you consider how cutthroat the pricing wars are, resulting in TV
hardware being a low-margin business. And it makes sense when you think about it. Many people simply
accept default settings when they set up their TVs that allow for lots of data collection. And even
if you go in and turn it off, it's hard to completely turn it off. Hmm, I wonder if someone
at Hulu is judging me for all the embarrassing reality shows I watched in the meantime. I really
like Smut. So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, hit like, hit subscribe,
and be sure to hit us up in the comments section with your suggestions for topics that we should
cover in the future times.