Linked List: January 8, 2019

Tuesday, 8 January 2019

‘Post-Purchase Monetization’ — Why Smart TVs Are Cheaper Than Dumb TVs ★

Nilay Patel interviewed Vizio CTO Bill Baxter at CES:

Patel: I guess I have a philosophical question. You guys are committed to low price points and you often beat the industry at those price points. Can you hit those price points without the additional data collection that TV does if you don’t have an ad business or a data business on top of the TV?

Baxter: So that’s a great question. Actually, we should have a beer and have a long, long chat about that.

So look, it’s not just about data collection. It’s about post-purchase monetization of the TV.

This is a cutthroat industry. It’s a 6-percent margin industry, right? I mean, you know it’s pretty ruthless. You could say it’s self-inflicted, or you could say there’s a greater strategy going on here, and there is. The greater strategy is I really don’t need to make money off of the TV. I need to cover my cost.

I know a certain company that is really good at succeeding in “cutthroat” low-margin industries by making superior products that can sell for higher margins. And their products tend not to do creepy stuff like this.

Let’s be clear what this is: the TV makers have software that watches what you watch and keeps track of it to show you targeted ads.

Bloomberg: ‘Facebook App Can’t Be Deleted From Certain Samsung Phones’ ★

People get annoyed by any undeleteable third-party app, but Facebook is particularly problematic because no one trusts them. You can “disable” it, but does that really keep Facebook from tracking you on the phone? I wouldn’t trust it. And who thought this was a good idea? Was there a single person on the planet who wanted to use Facebook on their phone but didn’t because it wasn’t pre-installed at the factory?

Update: A friend suggests this might be about India and countries in southeast Asia, where not everyone has an email address, the Google Play Store is not ubiquitous, and apps are often installed via sideloading and are often of dodgy origin. I.e. that Android in the developing world really is tricky enough that pre-installing Facebook could be of use to some people.

The Google Assistant Ride at CES 2019 ★

Even by the standards of CES marketing spectacles this is nuts.

(Via this Dieter Bohn feature for The Verge on Google’s plans to turn Assistant into more of an Alexa-style platform.)

Samsung Announces 29 Percent Drop in Quarterly Profit ★

Reuters:

Samsung Electronics surprised the market on Tuesday with an estimated 29 percent drop in quarterly profit, blaming weak chip demand in a rare commentary issued to “ease confusion” among investors already fretting about a global tech slowdown.

The South Korean firm also said profit would remain subdued in the first quarter due to difficult conditions in memory chips, but that the market is likely to improve in the second half of the year as customers release new smartphones.

LG, too. Maybe the market shouldn’t have been surprised.

Stephen Hackett on the 12-Inch PowerBook G4 ★

Stephen Hackett:

It’s been pretty quiet on my YouTube channel, but I’m kicking off 2019 with something fun: A look at the most beloved notebook in Mac history, the 12-inch PowerBook G4.

The 12-inch PowerBook G4 has come up a few times on my podcast recently. Yeah, it’s absurdly thick by today’s standards, but damn if it doesn’t still look cool. Hackett captures the appeal of it so well.