Walmart is in talks to acquire Vizio, which sells a popular line of value-priced smart TVs that include an ad-supported free streaming service

which

could make Walmart a significant player in the connected-TV advertising business, competing with the likes of Roku, Amazon and Google/YouTube

via Variety

When users say “platform,” we mean software (increasingly cloud-based).

When platforms say “platform,” they mean hardware.

Every major ad platform wants a hardware platform of their own. For that sweet, sweet first-party data & to not be beholden to someone else (especially a competitor).