The insanely cheap prices of high-quality TV sets are the story of the American economy

The Outline

"The falling price of TVs speaks to evolutions in both how people buy and use TVs — and how TV makers themselves actually make money. Both these shifts are representative of how the American economy as a whole has changed in the last decade," says Noah Kulwin. "There are a few immediate causes for the continued decline of TV prices. For one thing, there are a lot more companies that can now manufacture a lot more TVs; a few of the biggest manufacturers (Vizio, TCL) only exploded in popularity in the U.S. over the past 10 to 15 years. Additionally, you don’t actually need a TV to watch TV anymore; Nielsen data pretty consistently shows that people are watching more stuff on their phones and less stuff on their actual TV sets. With less demand for actual TVs, there’s less reason for manufacturers to price them even more highly. But the most interesting and telling reason for why TVs are now so cheap is because TV manufacturers have found a new revenue stream: advertising....The cut of the advertising revenue from those pre-installed video channels is big business for actual TV makers, as is the business of selling user viewing data and other information to marketers." ALSO: Netflix, Hulu and other streamers each pay $1 per customer for their own buttons on Roku remotes.