[criddell]

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.

[anoncareer0212]

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)

[criddell]

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.

[anoncareer0212]

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'

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey...

[criddell]

I'm assuming you put sold in quotation marks because you are being generous and are really talking about disclosure in a broad sense.

Maybe those 90% haven't read stories like this one (which is about Facebook):

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582

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.

[scarface74]

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.

[criddell]

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.

[scarface74]

There is an opt out. The only retention policy is that records must be destroyed within one year after the account is terminated.

https://epic.org/privacy/vppa/

[scarface74]

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

By what metric?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/11/amazon-beats-apple-and-googl...

[shajznnckfke]

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.

[scarface74]

Tens of millions?

No one thinks that Apple has sold tens of millions of TVs.

https://macdailynews.com/2020/09/02/strategy-analytics-apple...

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.

[shajznnckfke]

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.

Back in 2015 Apple said they had already sold 25 million: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...

Anecdotally they’re common in households where people have iPhones. IMO, they currently have the best user experience to control a TV.

[scarface74]

25 million is nothing. Apple sells close to 200 million phones a year. 25 million over a lifetime is minuscule.

Besides that, Apple talked about how hard it is to be “HDMI 1”. Especially now that all of the TVs have “smarts” and most people still have cable. Not to mention that an Apple TV is $149-$200. I have two ATV4Ks that were both free when AT&T was doing their deal. We don’t even use it on one of our TVs that have Roku built in.

Besides that, sales before 2015 are almost irrelevant. That was before it had an App Store. A lot of the new streaming services don’t even support it. Roku wasn’t being integrated into low end TVs left and right.

There is no better experience for most people than a TV with Roku built in. One remote controls everything.