I can't wait for e-paper to get cheaper for consumers, but I'm not looking forward to the inevitable increase in advertising displays this will accommodate when it does.
Advertising is one of those area where energy costs and needs don't seem to be a problem. It we could replace all "active" advertising display by e-ink, we would save an insane amount of energy. It feels like every bus stops now has one of those lcd ad screen, because good old recycled paper is not good enough anymore.
I guess that changing the paper displays cost a lot more than people imagine when you include all the backend jobs for distribution.
Being able to change the sign quickly/often for new advertisers might also bring in more money. E.g. you can now sell different advertisements on Friday versus other weekdays, and more specialized Christmas advertisement.
For BART in the Bay Area, it’s a shockingly small amount of money - $1.7M in revenue out of $255M total. I’d happily pay half a percent more to not have that crap put in my face. Hell, I’ll pay your half percent too.
Advertising is a negative-sum game. If we replace all "active" advertising displays with e-ink, we won't be saving energy - that energy will be immediately put to use in making even more of even more obnoxious ads.
> I'm not looking forward to the inevitable increase in advertising displays this will accommodate when it does.
Counterpoint - a large e-ink advert market means (likely) cheaper e-ink products for consumers. E-ink isn't likely to replace cheap paper, it's more likely to replace LCDs and OLED screens which are already more obvious/intrusive as they're self-emitting.
Does anyone know what the long-term price of these is likely to trend towards? Like, is there some fundamental reason (materials, proess) that they'll always be 10x the cost of an LCD screen, or can we expect them to eventually get to similar prices?
The big e-ink screens are handmade, because there's basically no demand for $3k 1Hz screens so they haven't invested in automating the process.
In theory, the big screens could be roughly comparable to LCD screen prices, like the 6" e-ink screens already are.
They key cause of cost in e-ink is lack of demand, and more specifically lack of demand compared to LCDs. LCDs are produced at a rate of billions per quarter, they're so stupidly cheap it's almost unfair to compare them with e-ink. Point is, LCDs will always be cheaper unless demand changes.