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Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

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Re: Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

#101

Post by wlesieutre »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #24
djrogers wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple is seems almost as bad too. There's recommendations that I don't want. The main AppleTV UI doesn’t have any recommendations for streaming apps you don’t own - the only thing that’s even close are when you highlight one of the apps in the top bar.

As an iOS user, there's a couple weird ones: Apple prohibits apps from putting ads in notifications, but sends a notification ad for every new Apple TV+ show. "Rules for thee, but not for me"

Apple no longer prohibits ads in notifications as of March last year

https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/04/apple-now-allows-push-notific...

Good way to get your notification privileges revoked though. I wish Apple would add granular notification categories within apps so that you could approve particular types of notifications while denying others. A quick google says Android 8 did this in 2017.

Apple's policy on this is to require in-app configuration to opt out of marketing messages, rather than a way to configure it through the OS.

Re: Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

#102

Post by Nicksil »

swiley wrote: post #23
sdflhasjd wrote: post #6

My shield updated to this the other day. I'm pretty furious about it, it's not a cheap device, and it's certainly not Google's. To be adding these "features" without asking, irrespective of whatever agreement between me, Nvidia or Google exists, is ridiculous. I know it's in whatever terms I, uh, "accepted", but there's just no escaping it in this day and age. Fortunately, I know how to use ADB and just installed ano…

>but there's just no escaping it in this day and age. Yes there is. Absolutely no closed software ever. That's the rule you use. Even the modem on the phone I'm typing this on is running FOSS firmware. Don't compromise your freedom for convenience, you always end up with neither when you do.

>Yes there is. Absolutely no closed software ever. That's the rule you use. Even the modem on the phone I'm typing this on is running FOSS firmware. Don't compromise your freedom for convenience, you always end up with neither when you do.

I don't think I understand fully the point you're trying to make. How does free and open source software prevent a software developer from inserting the code necessary for behavior such as we're discussing? Granted, they may be chastised, but the ability remains. We've seen this happen already with software developers inserting ads into the shell during install (or some other operation). A lot more work and effort on our part is necessary to prevent this type of behavior becoming normalized.

Re: Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

#103

Post by likeabbas »

Covzire wrote: post #38
wildrhythms wrote: post #13

It's really incredible how the average American home spends some $116/mo for television[1], and is still subjected to 16 minutes of advertisements per hour of entertainment. [1] https://www.doxo.com/insights/united-states-of-bill-pay-doxo...

I haven't had cable for about 15 years now, and commercials are a big reason. But it's not even just the commercials, I just wasn't interested in the six hundreth special on Nostradamus or aliens on the history channel, or shows purportedly about space exploration that are 50% CGI and 49% speculation masquerading as observations or any kind of "reality shows". Yes and nothing makes me feel like my brain cells are com…

I must be in the minority here, but Ancient Aliens is one of my favorite tv shows. It has some of the funniest, most outlandish, content I’ve ever seen.

Re: Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

#104

Post by seanp2k2 »

pizza wrote: post #53
wildrhythms wrote: post #13

It's really incredible how the average American home spends some $116/mo for television[1], and is still subjected to 16 minutes of advertisements per hour of entertainment. [1] https://www.doxo.com/insights/united-states-of-bill-pay-doxo...

It really feels like more than 16.. you know, just the other day I realized my Roku TV was analyzing the video stream of what I was watching, and adding its own ads on top of the output of my Shield. Wonder if it would be possible to jailbreak the Roku, patch the firmware so that it recognized and blocked ads instead..

Possible? Certainly. Worth the time? Likely not. Just get a different device that respects your privacy or one that is more open to letting you control it how you see fit.

Re: Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

#105

Post by tyingq »

pdimitar wrote: post #90
tyingq wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think NVidea is getting any of the revenue for these ads. If I understand it right, Google is getting the revenue...the launcher is Google's app.

Gods, that's even worse then! So NVIDIA will have to deal with Google just randomly deciding to monetize a launcher...?

Yes, that's the essence of the problem. Android TV devices have to use Google's launcher as the default, or they have to go fully on their own, without Google services, like a FireTV device.

Re: Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

#106

Post by seanp2k2 »

harpersealtako wrote: post #42
wildrhythms wrote: post #13

It's really incredible how the average American home spends some $116/mo for television[1], and is still subjected to 16 minutes of advertisements per hour of entertainment. [1] https://www.doxo.com/insights/united-states-of-bill-pay-doxo...

>$116/mo for television The link you posted says that's cable and internet, not television.

Some sports packages are >$50/month on their own, and lots of people love their sports.

Re: Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

#108

Post by wccrawford »

pdimitar wrote: post #77

I might be the dumbest observer on these trends around here but does it seem to somebody else that this is a normal part of the end-of-life lifecycle of many devices and that it usually goes like this... - "Sir, sales are falling... we actually haven't had new sales in months". - "How much does it cost to support the infrastructure for these devices?" - "X million a month". - "Feck it. Cram ads into them, we're not s…

I think there's some of that, but this wasn't done by the people who made and sold the hardware, nVidia. This was done by Google.

Another post said that Google's certifications require that the device manufacturer keep the stock launcher, which would mean that nVidia couldn't and can't do anything about this directly.

nVidia is still selling plenty of these boxes and it would absolutely ruin their business if they started cramming ads into paid products.

Re: Nvidia Shield TV Owners Are Pissed About the Banner Ads in Android TV

#110

Post by brewdad »

mataug wrote: post #49

Ads were the main reason why I stopped using my FireTV and switched to an AppleTV. If I pay for the device, and then I also pay for Amazon Prime, I expect atleast the main UI to be Ad-free.

At least FireTV devices are subsidized. I sort of expect ads as part of the deal in getting a device for about half price compared to similar devices.

I paid $150 for my Shield and now get the same crappy experience as my $25 FireTV stick.

A completely separate issue: The HBOMax app actually works better on my $25 device.

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