Smart TVs are actually pretty stupid.
Between these slow, laggy interfaces, frequent advertising, and privacy concerns,
the user experience often isn't all that great. But if you just want a dumb TV without these features, they are shockingly hard to find.
Even cheap TVs are usually running a smart operating system these days.
So where have all the dumb TVs gone?
I just want a dumb TV. Unsurprisingly, TV manufacturers have a financial incentive to load down their products with
smart junk you may not want. Although details of these specific deals between manufacturers and the companies
developing these smart platforms are kept confidential, all of the major smart TV makers are getting some kind of kickback.
Companies like Roku, Amazon, and Google pay TV manufacturers to get their operating systems
pre-installed. And this has become an important source of revenue for the manufacturers.
Even if you're buying a TV from a company like Vizio or LG,
which operate their own smart TV platforms instead of paying for someone else's,
they're still monetizing that operating system. One way they do this is through advertisements.
These are typically produced and displayed by whoever developed the operating system.
So in the case of a company like Vizio or LG, they're keeping the profits.
While platforms like Roku, who live on a different company's TV,
might split advertising dollars with TCL or whoever actually made the hardware.
You also might see free channels built into the operating system.
These are usually ad supported with some of that revenue possibly going to the manufacturer.
Aside from advertising, you often see money flow directly from an app developer to a TV
manufacturer, such as through the Netflix, Hulu, or Apple TV buttons on the remote.
These streaming services pay manufacturers for those dedicated buttons.
And if you sign up for a subscription to one of these services, the manufacturer also may get a cut of that money depending on whether a deal is in place.
Streaming services can also pay to have their apps pre-installed
so you see them on a home screen out of the box, and manufacturers can receive a cut of that money,
even if they do not own the operating system. Okay, we get it.
Smart features make these TV manufacturers a bunch of money. But can't they also make good money selling dumb TVs?
Lower-end TVs, including smart TVs, are now commodity goods that are being sold at prices
close to the break-even point. And these more value-oriented TVs make up about half of the market these days.
Without smart features, manufacturers would be taking not insignificant losses on budget sets,
which would explain why dumb TVs only account for around 2% of TV sales these days.
It's a little bit like how the inkjet printer business works.
You sell low-end hardware at a break-even price or even at a small loss,
then make your money through ink refills, just like your mama dreamed.
Being a doctor, that's for losers. Sell print to ink. Here, TV manufacturers are selling hardware at thin margins,
but propping themselves up with subsidies and ad revenue. Okay, but what about the fact that they're often extremely frustrating to use?
Well, although many more technically inclined customers have frequently complained about
the slow performance of the built-in smart features, plenty of people still prefer the convenience of just having streaming functionality in one device,
and are willing to put up with a laggy UI in return.
And it helps that if it really bothers you, you can always buy a separate streaming stick or box,
which generally have better performance. And because so many TV models are commodity items,
manufacturers are more concerned about keeping costs down than they are about snappy performance.
If they're cheap enough that people end up replacing them every few years,
manufacturers simply aren't going to worry all that much about ensuring the chips inside
can keep up with more advanced software that rolls out as the years go by.
Instead, you'll get relatively inexpensive hardware sometimes
that has to juggle image processing, the user interface, and all that smart junk.
Although this is a bit less of an issue on higher-end TVs,
and smart features may not be as necessary on them in order to sell them at a profit,
there's no reason for them to not include smart features.
It's not like these big businesses hate money. And because the cost of adding smart features and the hardware necessary to support them
is fairly trivial, there isn't an incentive for these manufacturers
to save money by not including them.
But if you really want a dumb TV, there are a few smaller brands that do still manufacture them.
And if you want something nicer, you might look for commercial-grade TVs designed for
places like restaurants and airports, where the screen needs to be running continuously.
But be prepared to pay a bit more than you might expect.
Barring that, just buy yourself a really big computer monitor.
It's simple. And thank you for watching.
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