> But most tracking, Vizio included, doesn't give you any benefits.
It makes the products you want cheaper/more commercially viable.
It's usually not completely obvious, but look at the Kindle Fire tablets which have ads on the home screen for a $10 discount.
It's the same reason many computers come preinstalled with crapware; consumers want the cheapest price and are willing to tolerate crapware being installed by default for a cheaper computer.
Here's the thing with consumer "wants" - I feel it often is portrayed backwards. Consumers tend to not "want" stuff - they choose from what's available. There are no polls made in which consumers express an opinion that they'd happily buy a TV that tracks their watching habits if it was cheaper. Instead, somebody introduces such user-hostile way to make money on the side, allowing them to sell the product cheaper, and people start buying it because it's cheaper. Competition has to follow suit.
The point being, companies are guilty of putting such products on the market in the first place; you can't then turn around and say "look at the sales figures, it's obviously what people want!".
I couldn't find data on this, but I think the ads version of the Kindle Fire is the more popular one, and users have the option to pay more for no ads.
I don't know why everyone gets so torn up about this when we all know Netflix.and YouTube track what we're watching, and the dream of personalized content recommendations relies on this data. I'm guessing it's mostly because adtech companies and advertisers are generally disliked around here.
It makes the products you want cheaper/more commercially viable.
It's usually not completely obvious, but look at the Kindle Fire tablets which have ads on the home screen for a $10 discount.
It's the same reason many computers come preinstalled with crapware; consumers want the cheapest price and are willing to tolerate crapware being installed by default for a cheaper computer.