The answer is manufacturing cost.
LCD panels are made in a similar fashion to silicon processors. You have a substrate which you cut into functional units. ALso, panels these days are all what used to be called active tft. Basically, the silicon needed for pixel switching is deposited on the back of the panel. As a result, you run into the same problems with yield as Intel or TSMC.
That being said, widescreen offers great benefits to manufacturers.
The immediate benefit is lowered production cost. Since panels are produced on a single substrate which is then cut, widescreen format fits more panels. Similar to processors, this lowers the cost per final product because of yield. It's a lot harder to produce a large, single, functional panel than three out of four smaller panels on the same substrate. Simple geometry.
Second, marketing had a field day during the transition. Same or bigger numbers emblazoned on products cheaper to produce. Consumers don't care to sit there and count pixels. They just look for bigger (or smaller, if it's a stat like delay) numbers. You have to sit both screens side by side for the average consumer to comprehend the difference in viewable area and even then they tend to look at the sticker price instead.
Third, the long term effects of manufacturers moving to widescreen meant that equipment also moved to widescreen. From each generation to the next, the cost of equipment rose significantly, reducing the number of companies that make them through simple cost of overhead. Eventually, the few companies left took to working together to develop the next generation. These same companies often preferred to produce widescreen because of the higher yields and the ability to produce the same panels for both computer and television. As each generation came and went, companies stopped developing equipment for non-widescreen formats. Subsequently, cost migrated pretty much the rest of the industry to produce widescreen.
LCD panels are made in a similar fashion to silicon processors. You have a substrate which you cut into functional units. ALso, panels these days are all what used to be called active tft. Basically, the silicon needed for pixel switching is deposited on the back of the panel. As a result, you run into the same problems with yield as Intel or TSMC.
That being said, widescreen offers great benefits to manufacturers.
The immediate benefit is lowered production cost. Since panels are produced on a single substrate which is then cut, widescreen format fits more panels. Similar to processors, this lowers the cost per final product because of yield. It's a lot harder to produce a large, single, functional panel than three out of four smaller panels on the same substrate. Simple geometry.
Second, marketing had a field day during the transition. Same or bigger numbers emblazoned on products cheaper to produce. Consumers don't care to sit there and count pixels. They just look for bigger (or smaller, if it's a stat like delay) numbers. You have to sit both screens side by side for the average consumer to comprehend the difference in viewable area and even then they tend to look at the sticker price instead.
Third, the long term effects of manufacturers moving to widescreen meant that equipment also moved to widescreen. From each generation to the next, the cost of equipment rose significantly, reducing the number of companies that make them through simple cost of overhead. Eventually, the few companies left took to working together to develop the next generation. These same companies often preferred to produce widescreen because of the higher yields and the ability to produce the same panels for both computer and television. As each generation came and went, companies stopped developing equipment for non-widescreen formats. Subsequently, cost migrated pretty much the rest of the industry to produce widescreen.
There was a promo on the one I'm using now, so I bought it. Also sold the old 22" so all in all I didn't spend that much in the 22" -> 24" shift 
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