At least in my town you can opt out by paying with coins. So the convenience fee is for not having to carry coins around. For me at least it's worth the trade.
I find it weird that it's okay for a city to pay someone to come around to collect the coins, at no additional cost to the customer, but swiping/tapping? Absolutely not, that must be passed through to the customer.
I'm sure for the city tap to pay is cheaper for them than collecting the $, even without a fee.
The town is pretty wild too. Well, in a not wild sort of way - at least in winter.
It's one thing to read most residents live in the same apartment building. For me what really brought it home was seeing for sale flyers on the bulletin board in the coffee shop: "For sale: a table. Questions see Bob in apt 23".
The sight of an indoor playground complete with swing set was fun too.
Crude oil is sketchy stuff. All sorts of VOCs, etc evaporate from it. Some valuable, some, flammable, some will merely kill you. Keeping it confined makes all that more manageable.
If consumers are unwilling to shell out for a TV priced high enough that the manufacturer doesn't need to do things like this to earn a (decent) profit, then what we've got is what you get.
You could certainly argue that the industry should've held the line, but that ignores human nature. One "innovative" manufacturer was always going to break ranks then the rest would follow, especially since the typical consumer appears (judging by the lack of non smart TV's for sale at consumer prices) to prefer lower prices to lack of tracking features. I think people very much like being able to buy a 65" tv for USD399.
If you want to mandate the sales of TVs that don't track, get a law passed. I suspect it'd be deeply unpopular once the resulting price rises were known.
> If consumers are unwilling to shell out for a TV priced high enough that the manufacturer doesn't need to do things like this to earn a (decent) profit, ...
The problem is, even if the device is priced at cost plus a reasonable margin, they can make more margin by selling data that they acquire by spying. No matter the margin on the sale, there's still more money to make by selling that data. There is no upper limit that magically prevents the manufacturer from looking for other avenues to increase profit. "Premium" device priced 3x the "reasonable" price? Still more money to be made selling data.
Now, factor in the race to the bottom on selling price, and those data sales just look that much more enticing.
I get what you’re saying but the market had a choice on this, and it chose.
They wanted the “smart” tvs. Overwhelmingly. “We” chose this hellscape when we had the opportunity to say no.
So I think the person you’re replying to is kinda right. We didn’t get forced into this so much as everyone collectively said, “Yeah, that’s what I want.”
Have you ever met people that actually wanted to buy a smart tv? I've only ever met one. Besides being dumb, he proved to be a dick, too. Maybe these qualities are related, maybe they're not.
But you're right: obviously there must have been people buying smart tvs in a time when there were still dumb tvs available, but what motivated these "people", where they came from, and where they have been hiding,... it's all a complete mystery to me. Last time I bought a tv, there were still some dumb models available. I may get a new display for whatever computer I'm working on every couple of years, but to me a tv is the sort of appliance you'd replace maybe once every 20 or 30 years at most, so I guess I have only been able to vote with my wallet once. Obviously voting with your wallet is as pointless as voting for certain politicians: so far I have yet to find any evidence that anything people vote for is subsequently reflected in reality in any way.
You're expecting consumers to be able to compare these anti-features that are actively hidden from them. It's like airline seats - airlines get away with continually shrinking them because consumers have no way to actually compare airline seat sizes ahead of time.
Ah, you have fallen for the bullshit that is "revealed preferences theory", a dependent of "free market theory".
The reason it's bullshit is that we don't have a free market. There are constraints and asymmetric information and inelastic demand and all kinds of other forces at play that completely negate any supposed wisdom you might hope to find in free market theory.
And if the market is not free—if consumers do not have a fully open choice, where every possible feature and option (including things like "lower price in exchange for constant surveillance") is individually selectable, or they don't have enough access to different options, or they don't have enough time and brainpower to exhaustively research every option—then what consumers buy in aggregate is not reflective of what they choose.
It's reflective of what the manufacturers choose to push.
What do you mean? I don’t recall ever asking manufacturers if I could trade my privacy for a discount. I don’t remember that at all…people will pay whatever the price is, if inflation hasn’t taught that to you, then I’m not sure what to tell you. The other thing inflation showed us, is that manufacturers will absolutely put a price on what they feel is “decent profit.” Cmon dude. Do you not remember how much we paid for eggs?!
Which, i think it was found later to be that the manufacturers “manufactured,” “scam-bled eggs.”
You know, I’ve been thinking, I don’t think im being paid enough! Im giving myself a raise. We can do that, right?!
> Companies can develop new products without your advice. In fact consumers often don't know what they want.
I'd urge reading up on revealed preference and product discovery. It cuts both ways in that, sure, a company can offer a product on the market that no buyer asked for and have it sell well, but then, the media can expose some rather unsavory facts about that same product and subsequently (consequently?) have it not sell.
> Then why do businesses have sales? If prices don't matter why would businesses choose to make less money per sale?
It's worth picking this apart. Prices not mattering is usually expressed in economics-ese as price-inelastic demand, and that's usually not what's happening. Sales are a mechanism for drumming up demand for a product, with the hope that the additional volume will compensate for the marginally lower margin.
>I'd urge reading up on revealed preference and product discovery
I'm not sure what point you are contesting.
>It's worth picking this apart.
They were rhetorical questions.
>price-inelastic demand
With this you could argue that the absolute price does not matter, but the relative price between products that can substitute each other do. In this comment chain it is being argued that this kind of device wins on relative price.
>Sales are a mechanism for drumming up demand for a product, with the hope that the additional volume will compensate for the marginally lower margin.
It is for increasing demand, but making a higher rate of profit on the item is not the main reason. Things like being able to clear inventory, or to learn about what the current demand curve looks like (to know if prices should be adjusted) are more common purposes.
Revealed preference only makes sense in a world of perfect information. They don't tell you the TV spies on you. In fact, the revealed preferences is for TVs that appear not to spy on you, that's why they hide that information!
> Revealed preference only makes sense in a world of perfect information.
No??? Revealed preference is dependent on what information is known. The analysis is made easier if the information is perfect, but that is not at all a prerequisite to being able to lean on revealed preference.
> In fact, the revealed preferences is for TVs that appear not to spy on you, that's why they hide that information!
Exactly! Consider though that, as the information landscape changes, so does the revealed preference. Notably, when things like TVs spying on their buyers comes to light, a preference can be revealed that buyers don't want TVs that spy on them.
Like, it's entirely rational for LG to want to hide this fact about their televisions, provided that they have the inkling that this would be unpopular. Their behavior in trying to suppress this press leads me to believe that they know exactly how unpopular this is, and they're trying to get away with it anyway.
This stance is so anti-consumer it's laughable. Are you seriously implying LG doesn't turn a decent profit with their massive empire? There's an issue with capitalism of chasing infinite growth rather than stability, and this is one of the consequences of chasing such growth.
reply