I find it amusing that after all these years we’re still supposed to believe it’s economics of scale, low demand, or costly manufacturing behind the reason a 2 inch epaper module costs $25 CAD even on aliexpress. Meanwhile physical retailers are installing them by the tens of millions on store shelves complete with microcontrollers and OTA updates for unit costs in the $4-6 range, meaning the actual eink module cost with profit margin for the manufacturer is a fraction of that. It was believable 15 years ago.
Store shelf screens are extremely tiny. If a 1 inch by 2 inch screen costs a dollar to manufacture. Then a 7 inch x 6 inch screen by linear scaling should cost 21 dollars to manufacture. But I think manufacturing costs are more than linear since the control electronics become more complicated and yields become lower (more pixels, more screens have dud pixels that need to be thrown away).
You've never seen one? They flip screens every few seconds, the whole aisle will gently flicker as the screens redraw. Sometimes. I've seen static ones, too.
