I don't understand why this comment was downvoted. This is priced the way it is because the profit isn't in the hardware, it's in the viewer data. It's very cheap only if you set the value of your privacy to some very low number.
Anecdotally, techies are tiring of vague statements about privacy and 'you're the product', especially about Google. If theres a tangible cost beyond enabling ad targeting, people are still amenable (this has always been true for the general populace, Google has a more trustworthy image than Apple! Imagine that)
I think you're right about the attitude among techies - especially those around San Francisco - and I think that's part of the reason why our reputation is in decline. A lot of America sees us as a bunch of creeps spying on everything they do and they aren't wrong about that.
Video records are a special class of data covered by the Video Privacy Protection Act. The tangible cost is the risk that your viewing history would be used to attack you. It happened before and that's what spurred the creation of that act.
To put it more plainly: Americans love tech and trust it, and not so oddly, in reverse order of how _tech people_ appreciate the companies.
Look at these ratings, theyre in direct contradiction with your guess of what they are as well as your thesis: Amazon and Google both have above 90% trust, Apple has 81%.
I've meditated on them a lot, and came to the conclusion there's a lot of class issues in tech spaces, and a borderline condescending paternal instinct towards users. Over 90% of people know their information isn't being 'sold'
Or maybe they've never heard of a data broker? To be clear, I don't think Google sells user data, but do they share it with anybody like Facebook has a history of doing? That I'm not clear about. I think they may share it with other Alphabet companies. I think they do buy data from brokers.
And that law has no effect on Google. Google doesn’t sell data to advertisers. It sells access to you. Meaning they aren’t going to send advertisers a list of 20-35 year olds who like action movies. Advertisers are going to ask Google to target their advertisements to that demographic.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think there are also data retention limits and opt-out requirements as part of that act. Some states have stricter rules as well.
Why else would Google be producing hardware and selling it so cheaply if not to monetize usage data? Is there any world where the thin if any profit margin on Chromecast like devices are worth the revenue for a company the size of Google?
Roku - the leading company in the space - made $1.19 billion in revenue. I doubt anyone thinks that Google will approach Roku’s market share.
Roku is all about obtrusive advertising. Why would Google be any different? Do you think Google put a hard coded Netflix button on the remote out of the goodness of their heart?
> Google has a more trustworthy image than Apple! Imagine that
Apple has sold tens of millions of Apple TVs. Apple doesn’t break out the revenue in their earnings reports but they have definitely made billions in revenue from the business. With that large install base, Apple has growing power to promote services in the video streaming market which is worth hundreds of billions. The more power Apple has here, the greater their ability to extract a cut from streaming service revenue as platform owner. This is relevant to Google as a player in the video streaming market, who also owns platforms that compete with Apple’s. It would be stupid for Google to not put up a fight in this market.
The global population of TV and video streaming devices has now exceeded 1.1 billion, with Apple TV / tvOS holding 2% share, according to the latest market share analysis from Strategy Analytics’ TV Streaming Platforms service.
And this is from MacdailyNews. Definitely not
an anti Apple rag. Apple has been calling the AppleTV a “hobby” for over a decade.
There is a reason that Apple is making deals left and right to get AppleTV (the app) on competing platforms and now they are making deals with Roku to support Airplay.
Doing the math on your numbers, 2% of 1.1 billion is 22 million, which is tens of millions. The 1.1 billion appears to include TVs with included “smart TV” software, which explains why it’s such a huge number.
You don't think "likes action movies" or "watches romantic comedies" or "binge watches on weekends" are targeting segments that advertisers will pay for?
It seems like search intent data would be a great source of this kind of information that Google already has. I think this product is more about competing for market power as platform owner in the video streaming business, which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
I’d guess it could tie into the ad business by showing attribution when ads for media result in conversions that play on the Google TV, although I’m not sure how big the opportunity is there.
I think I’ve searched on Google for most movies I’ve ever watched. Maybe that makes me a weird person, I don’t know. If you search for a movie on Google, you get a lot of information, including reviews, actors, links to rent it on Google Play Store, Amazon, watch it on various streaming services, etc. There’s money to be made being the place people go when they want things. Actually that’s how Google makes most of its money - companies pay a finders fee to have that demand directed toward them. Content ads are a smaller business.
That’s not what most people do. Most people are watching movies on their TV. The Netflix recommendation engine is a huge driver of what people watch. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and YouTube are the big four. I’m not sure how many people are actually watching YouTube on TV though.
You turn on your average smart TV or device, it’s also allowing you to buy movies on the device.
If you are binge watching TV, your TV knows. It knows what you watch, when you watch, etc.
So exactly how would they do that without my viewing data and why would advertisers pay for that when they can get better information from Roku and the smart TV manufacturers?