[hy3lxs]

(1) It's cheaper for the manufacturer as others have stated.

(2) Normal consumers don't like black bars. So they playback their increasingly-common 16:9 dvd/youtube/hulu content and complain that there are black bars at the top and bottom of their 16:10 or 4:3 screen, and feel like it's being "wasted," never mind that everything else you do on a computer (read web pages, edit documents) is done vertically and the extra lines help. Same reason why you see 4:3 content being played back stretched on 16:9 displays in coffee shops -- people would rather see a grossly distorted image than see black bars. Same reason you find really messed up in-between screen ratios being sold retail (stretch both 16:9 and 4:3, take the worst of both worlds but hey! no black bars). Personally, I'll take square pixels and correct aspect ratio with black bars any day.