After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads

Everything has ads now, I don’t have a fire TV but surprised Amazon is this late to this bs game. The Xbox has ads now like with mw3 when you launch the console. My Visio Tv I spent ~1000 on a few years ago is stuffed with ads when you turn it on.

buying a 'dumb' tv is getting harder and harder to do...

how long until you are forced to hook a new 'smart' one up to the internet, just to "set it up"--even if you have no plans on ever using the 'smart' features or embedded apps?

What a totally expected turn of events!

Stuffing ads on streaming services? How could Amazon do such a thing?

Anyway, for your consideration, Barbie (at last!), now available on streaming services everywhere.

And you are surprised?

This needs to become illegal. Ads are part of the price you pay for a device or service. If you didn't agree to them at the time of purchase, they can't be sprung on you after you've paid.

Actually kinda surprised that chromecast doesn’t have ads, at least the model we have.

We have a dumb projector with features such as “select source”.

I have a nearly-dumb TV (chosen for that and never connected to the Internet) and a separate little Android TV box I got from AliExpress for 25 bucks were I only use Kodi.

The TV is maybe 4 years old, the little box maybe 1 year (I had a 10 year old similar thing before but it can't handle newer video formats so I switched).

Have yet to see a single Ad.

Mind you my setup is as is because I've long ago learned that you want your fast-changing-cheap-tech bits separate from your expensive-long-life stuff, so in this case I want my digital video file decoding hardware separate from the much more expensive large digital TV screen so that I can switch the former without paying a new of the - much more expensive - latter.

This is sort of what happened with Google Chromecast with Google TV. I bought that on a technicality for my parents over an Apple TV. My mom (who isn't a native English speaker) was watching another foreign language show on Netflix and whenever she paused on the Apple TV the seek bar would come in and overlay itself on the subtitles. She was frequently pausing just to catch up on the long sentences to read them and then unpausing just as quickly. This wasn't an issue on the Android-based Netflix, where the subtitles remained in view.

Well OF COURSE because it's fucking Google they started shoving more and more ads onto the device, to the extent that my parents actually get pretty confused on how to properly navigate the thing. It makes me so mad.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Amazon being greedy and bake ads into their devices? Who could see that coming?!

Remember that "deal" always has depth behind it. They are waiting to reach critical mass so they can "throw the switch". Streaming services, "smart" devices, subscription services... You should only engage with these "deals" if you understand the bigger picture and have a plan to disengage quickly as soon as they pull their bullshit.

Your black Friday TV is NOT the same as the TV that brand typically sells. It's a different sku, all the parts are deliberately sourced lesser quality versions and it's literally designed to break/fail earlier than the "normal" version. You're not getting a deal on the TV you wanted, you're buying a lesser TV - Not necessarily a bad thing if you know what you're buying, but you need to know what you're buying.

Anyone that didn't know that was the end game was not paying attention.

Am I the only one who sticks to old school solutions like a dedicated HTPC running Linux and Kodi instead of ad-infested Android TV sticks/boxes?

I do wonder what makes some people despise ads.

I myself do, but I’ve never been told to or even been echo chambered (well maybe now, but not always). Going back over tens years and detested them.

But at work some people think ad-blockers shouldn’t be a thing as it’s stealing as the internet runs on ads and I just can’t see that point of view. However valid it could be.

I don’t want to see them all my digital life as they are on the real world. Christ I’ve seen them on the pissing motorway ffs.

Glad I use Apple TVs on LG devices.

How is this surprising?

PSA: It is incredibly easy to get an alternative launcher for android TVs. Zero ads. Literally none.

In my humble opinion until the producers of such appliances learn honesty through pain, it's much better to have a pirate streambox (with something like torrentflix or Popcorn Time or whatever, I just download torrents and watch on my laptop, so don't use these things).

An Apple TV box doesn’t have ads.

When you're served ads, you're not the customer, but the product. The customers would be the advertisers. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, mind you, until it stops you from consuming the context you intended on consuming. Then it becomes a problem.

Who didn’t see this coming?

Oh no! Whoever could have foreseen this awful turn of events! Amazon would never (checks notes) stuff ads down our throats.

Put your network behind NextDNS or a self-hosted solution like Pi-Hole or AdGuard Home.

Have you seen the TV that has a second screen that just plays ads

This is literally the oldest trick in the book, haha.

I'll keep buying dumb TVs for as long as they're around to thrift for. There's going to be plenty of flat screen dumb TVs for a lifetime.

I'm pretty sure everybody saw this coming. Well, everybody with any brains in their head.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In a StreamTV Insider report from November 1, Amazon said the new ads will allow advertisers to reach an average of 155 million unique monthly viewers.

For example, Amazon is preparing to make Alexa with generative AI more useful for finding content on Fire TVs.

This could help Alexa, which has struggled alongside other tech giants' voice assistants to generate significant revenue.

Amazon Fire TV users will also start seeing banner ads on the device's home screen for things that have nothing to do with entertainment or media.

Amazon opening the ad space to more types of advertisers is similar to a move Google TV made early this year.

The banner ads will occupy the first slot in the rotating hero area, which Amazon believes is the first thing Fire TV users see.

The original article contains 608 words, the summary contains 133 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Had a firestick for 4 years, switched to Roku a couple weeks ago and I wish I did years ago

I can boot up the Roku, open Plex, and start a video stream without ever seeing an ad

At recs on a comparable alternative? I don't mind spending more to not have ads

Whatever it is, I imagine it's a horrible product that doesn't work well and consistently disappoints its users.

No shit.

Just avoid hooking it up to the internet. Win/win