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Telly starts shipping its free ad-supported 55-inch TVs
(www.theverge.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I’m not too surprised; but to take the example of one country, in the USA where I live, 11% of the people (that’s about 40M people) live below the poverty line, and that is even much less money than a livable wage where you can afford rent, food and nothing else. I’m speaking of the US as an example, but I’m sure it’s not an uncommon situation in other countries either.
My point is: a massive amount of people can’t afford to spend $100 on entertainment, ever. I spent some time with such families, and I can tell you it is not at all an uncommon thing. If they have a TV today, they probably got it for free from somewhere (possibly a dumpster), and it looks exactly like they did. That’s a massive amount of people who would desire this kind of upgrade.
Now is it the right population to serve ads to, that’s a different question.
Absolutely!
People under the poverty line are more likely to go for get-rich-quick schemes, for an example.
Now whether it's MORAL to serve those ads to that population is also a different question.
That’s an excellent point.