So the Japanese TV industry was decimated in almost exactly the same way that the US industry was in the 1980s with the loss of RCA and Zenith.

That’s a pretty impressive run. Panasonic TVs were good though to see them finish is a shame.

TVs have just become a commodity, there's very little incentive for the technology to continue to get better. Everyone just competes on size and price, and every manufacturer has turned their TVs into marketing platforms. The state of the market is so sad.

Panasonic consumer electronics products always had the best UX - talking 80s through early 00s products here. Visual feedback (when available) was always immediate. Button schemes etc were well designed.

I really liked the old Panasonic analog TVs and own a couple of them.

I thought they had already quit when plasma became the obvious worse choice.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guck4FoWQss