It's not as simple as charging per pixel. First of all, raising the resolution that high is still fairly new compared to 1080p. Lots of screens are going to come out not 100% perfect. See Catleap as evidence that lots of panels come out with defects even at non-4k resolution.
Second of all, because the screens are harder to make and prices are high because of that, adoption is lower too. With lower adoption comes lower economies of scale which mean higher prices again. So two factors at least that push prices up.
We won't see low prices until they can improve the manufacturing process enough to drop the price, which will increase adoption, which will drop the price, which will increase adoption, etc..
Comments
It's not as simple as charging per pixel. First of all, raising the resolution that high is still fairly new compared to 1080p. Lots of screens are going to come out not 100% perfect. See Catleap as evidence that lots of panels come out with defects even at non-4k resolution.
Second of all, because the screens are harder to make and prices are high because of that, adoption is lower too. With lower adoption comes lower economies of scale which mean higher prices again. So two factors at least that push prices up.
We won't see low prices until they can improve the manufacturing process enough to drop the price, which will increase adoption, which will drop the price, which will increase adoption, etc..
Good point 4x the pixels = 4x more defective pixels, given the same manufacturing.
Given that we're talking about components where more precision is needed, the odds of a defect aren't necessarily the same either.