> I would say the saying has stopped being accurate.

I wouldn't say so. The saying states that not paying implies being the product. Your example shows that being the product does not imply not paying. The two are independent and can be true at the same time.

TVs are so cheap now because of ad subsidies. That 42” panel wouldn’t cost $199 if it weren’t for ads.

That'd be a good point if there were companies offering the full price model, but unless you want to buy a commercial panel and do a bunch of hoop jumping yourself, you literally cant buy a TV without adware in it.

It would be great if we, the customers, were actually given a genuine, competitive choice. As you say, right now you literally don’t have a genuine choice.

There is precedent for this too. Amazon Kindles came (come?) with two options - one with ads and one without. The latter cost something like $20 more. That was good!

Having said that, I bought the one without ads and they increasingly, with software updates, devoted greater and greater screen space to the Amazon ebook store. I consider that to be an ad too (and arguably worse because of anti-competitiveness reasons).

Or it would be that cheap but ads and spyware just give them more money for free now.

That's fine, maybe the trade off in increased price is worth it to some people.

Source? That sounds like bullshit.

Nonsense.

The same surveillance capitalism runs on a multi-thousand dollar OLED panel.

Then it would cost multi-thousand dollars + extra without the ads in order for the manufactures to maintain their thin margins.