[safety1st]

The author observes that 4K TV sets have come down dramatically in price but 4K content seems to be retreating into a niche. For the latter he cites price increases to his streaming services.

He wonders why this is, muses on cultural history and doesn't come up with a precise answer.

I propose the answer is simple: the prices of TVs and streaming services are unrelated. Hardware tends to trend down in price as we get better at making it.

Content is not the same. Most of the content you watch on streaming services is owned and produced by an oligopoly. Streaming disrupted their lucrative cable model, and they want to get its prices and profits back up to the peak levels of cable. Since they're an oligopoly and they collude with each other (formally or informally), there's not much you can do about it. It will mean 4K is irrelevant for many people who don't want to indulge their latest price hiking tactic.

[uyvs5]

There is more content than there are eyeballs. And its growing faster than eyeballs can be grown. There are many kinds of content competing for those finite eyeballs.

What happens in such an abnormal environment of over supply will never make any sense.