There are two types of devices that define our relationship to content: phones and TVs. Sure, we have desktops and laptops, but they are tools for work, and platforms for content creation and massive gaming experiences.
You take the following two recent set of data points and you can see why I say that. Connected TVs, or smart TVs (all of which are connected), are on the rise while smartphones have probably reached near saturation point and personal computing devices are on the decline. Connected TV advertising is also on the rise and that’s really interesting.
You can bet easy money that if it was a Meta or a Google selling connected TVs, they would be looking to sew up access to their platforms, and look for market share, residual revenues from advertisers directly, and even looking at software subscription models to lock in the user.
What I am really trying to say is that a TV is no longer a TV. It is a computing device, a thin client, if you will, that is also a very unique digital marketing platform at a time when advertisers are trying to find better options than Meta and Google. Call these two companies what they are, monopolies, and monopolies are like the DMV, they will stagnate and keep you waiting in line, and there is nowhere to go and no one to complain to.
Will display vendors see the opportunity in turning their TVs into platforms? Probably not, at least for now, because they are too busy making a significant transition to new display technologies, and looking to rejig themselves for new production pradigms. They are kind of like Intel was twenty years ago – build those factories, check those yields, invest in that capex and get those new manufacturing facilities up and running.
That’s great. But, Intel is a shadow of its former self. You should look at Nvidia. Say Nvidia and you probably think about gaming and graphics, but Nvidia is a company that is deeply entrenched in software, AI/ML, and delivers much greater value than Intel. It may still be making GPUs, but it realized that in our connected world, everything is abstracted. A GPU can be anything it needs to be in a data center. Hooray for the connected universe.
And then, Apple, it can make chips and displays and there is only one measure of performance: does it run my apps? It’s the software that makes the difference. I want to see a TV manufacturer really go out on a limb and make a product that is a whole experience for the consumer. Back in the 90s, when Sony first brought out the PlayStation, and Microsoft freaked and rushed out the first Xbox, it was all about owning the computer in your living room. Sony’s PlayStation threatened the PC because it was a powerful piece of technology (we tend to forget how revolutionary it was at the time).
Didn’t quite go the way the Sony and Microsoft executives would have hoped; we don’t have a PS5 or Xbox in every living room, and they are not family computers by any stretch of the imagination. It’s different now. The connected TV is the computer in your living room. It just needs to live up to its full potential.
