Vizio Makes Nearly as Much Money From Ads and Data as It Does From Selling TVs

R. Lawler, writing a few weeks ago for Engadget:

Issuing its first public earnings report earlier today, [Vizio] revealed that in the first three months of 2021, profits from its Platform+ business — the part that sells viewer data and advertising space via the SmartCast platform — were $38.4 million. […] Its device business (the part that sells TVs, sound bars and the like) had a gross profit of $48.2 million in the same period, up from $32.5 million last year. While the hardware business has significantly more revenue, profits from data and advertising spiked 152 percent from last year, and are quickly catching up.

Walt Hickey, Numlock News:

Vizio is a television company with a data collection operation on the side, but is slowly becoming a data collection company with a television operation.

Is there a single privacy-respecting streaming platform other than Apple TV?

Is there a brand of TV that you can safely allow to connect to the internet?

★ Thursday, 27 May 2021