this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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That's because there's no reason for most people to buy another TV. The majority of people who would want one already have a TV, and there has been no technological advancement in the last decade or two that would entice anyone to throw away their already perfectly acceptable large LCD/OLED/whatever television just to buy another one just like it.
The only thing anyone has been able to come up with is making all TV's internet connected and "smart," which is a feature that approximately nobody except the MBA's in charge of the companies cranking them out seems to actually want.
This. Nowadays people mostly buy TVs when their old ones break. There's no marginal improvement. The industry is here to stay, but its high growth days are in the past.
We have also seen the budget range improve in quality and affordability. There will always be cheap junk TVs and overly expensive TVs, but that midrange, where most people buy, has become rock solid. There just isn’t much region to upgrade at the moment.
And we've mostly hit the limit of usable maximum sizes. For like the last two decades you could upgrade your TV to the next bigger size every few years for the same money you paid for the last one.
I remember starting with a maybe... 21" LCD TV back in 2005ish, and for that money today I could get like 70" TV. I don't have space to fit one that large, nor do I have any need for it even if I could.
Actually, a LOT of people stream with a smart TV instead of a separate device. More than half in the US.
https://gitnux.org/smart-tv-sales-statistics/
This tends to track with what I see in my family and friend’s homes. People tend to do couch streaming via the smart TV’s apps.
Personally, I think a fast, separate HDMI CEC device is a MUCH better user experience, and it’s still one remote. But for whatever reason, a lot of people aren’t opting to go with a separate AppleTV, GoogleTV ChromeCast, Roku, game console, etc.
But do they use it because it’s there, or do they actually go out and buy a TV because of the smart features? I’d much rather have a separate device (and do) than use the built in smart features. I would greatly prefer to buy a TV with no smart features and just continue using my AppleTV than have to buy a new TV every time the built in system stopped getting updates.
Upgraded my £200 dumb LCD to a £1000 OLED 3 years ago. My wife much prefers the simplicity and reliability of the TV remote and inbuilt smart features over separate devices. It's all personal preference
We were that way as well for a few years. Then the updates cause the sluggishness of the internal processor to become apparent… and then the updates stop completely. An internal smart system can’t be upgraded, external ones can. Not to mention that the HDMI spec will auto start the TVs and put it to the right input automatically when you turn in a connected device.
There was a time when people were buying the smart TV because Netflix and Apple were then apps on the TV and used the same remote.
But the apps are old and crunchy, the tv shovels ads at you, and the steamers are no longer offering the value required to make smart TVs a prime consolidation target.
I am looking forward to the contraction of the market and a shift back to "just a TV with 4 HDMIs" models. No tuners even.
The one thing I disagree with is the technological advancement. I feel like there has been advancement, but the problem is the cost of those advancements. No one is pining to drop thousands/tens of thousands of dollars on OLED, Micro-led, or whatever the hell else they have come out with over the years. On top of that the crappy interfaces of these TV's as well as privacy problems. See the recent roku debacle.
Yep, this here. I have a 10 year old tv and was considering buying a new one last year but it just didn’t seem worth the price for the upgrade.
people do want smart features on tvs.
they just dont want ads or the privacy nightmare tvs are.
OLED TVs have not been around for two decades.
Pretty damn close to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_XEL-1
It took a little longer for them to become mainstream. But even so, an ordinary LCD screen is perfectly acceptable to most people.
More people living at home with parents of roommates, probably mean fewer TVs being sold.
Tvs have a short lifespan, now. People have to replace them like every 5 years on average, I'd guess. I think people have less tvs in their homes, though.
The other part of this is that people brought a lot of tvs up to a couple years ago when there was a decade long stretch of LED back-lit tvs. The problem was that there might be 100 leds back there and a single one going out junked the tvs. They were cheaply fixable, but not easily fixable. Most people wouldn't be able to do it.
People replace them that often!? Damn...I have an old 1080p LED tv from Samsung that's more than a decade old and still going strong. Blacks aren't the best on it, but not bad enough to warrant an upgrade.
You kind of got lucky. I have the skills and equipment to find the bad ones and replace those LEDs on them. Keep an eye on Facebook marketplace and it's impressive how many people will put up their three year old 65+ inch tvs that don't work for free just to get rid of them because they can't fit in a trash can.
Getting to the LEDs without breaking anything is usually the hard part. Aside from like a million screws and clips, the screen itself is extremely thin and fragile, and you have to pick it up and move it around without cracking it. Little 40 or 50 inch tvs are fairly easy to do, but those 70+ inch tvs are going to take handled suction cups and a couple of people.
Then finding the burnt out led isn't much work with the right tools, and neither is soldering on a new led. So much trouble for just a single little LED that I can literally but in rolls of 100 for like $12.
So yeah, your TV breaks because of a 12 cent led. And that's consumer prices. Samsung probably pays like 5 cents.
Less if you went with Visio lol
Walmart bought the brand and made it worse with more ads.
That's what the article says... People don't replace them as quickly anymore