Paying $600 or $800 for a television was at one point a normal thing. Not sure what current prices are, but that premium doesn't sound terrible.

And in 2001 I bought a 32-inch CRT television for about $1,600. That was normal then.

Looks like it starts at about $400 for a normal 55 inch 4K Samsung, depending on model.

Yep, and I know TVs are cheap now because they’re always brought up to explain why the official inflation numbers seem lower than actual experience. “Okay, yeah, food, transportation, health care, and housing, sure, they went up… but if you pointlessly destroyed your TV and needed to buy a new one — whoa, Nelly, you’d be sittin’ pretty!”

It’s a pretty good bet that that low price is subsidized by customer tracking shared with advertisers and the display of ads.

We know it is. And that model is a few years old.

But that’s the base price people would compare against. A 50% premium to get rid of that creepy stuff is pretty heavy, though it may be less for higher end stuff or newer models.