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Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

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Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#71

Low cost computer, free software updates, backend infrastructure, several years of functional life, for $40 in sales (is there any profit there?). Exactly how is it surprising that they need to make some sort of additional revenue via kickback?

The specs are seem roughly equivalent to a raspberry pi, which is produced with far less economies of scale, and sold for a similar price point.

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that you could just grab an old computer slap Ubuntu on it, and get all of those services through only 1 HDMI slot?

If you're talking about doing the playback on Ubuntu, you lose the high-definition. I guess it may not be important for you, but I expect someone who sunk a fair amount of change on a high-end TV to care.

At that point, hit the high seas and ditch the nonsense

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#73
post #52
post #34

Point #1: This bait-and-switch tactic shouldn't be allowed by consumer regulations (Not in the US, but here in Brazil it would be a no-no) as in the end Amazon is tricking it's use base into paying for the Fire TV as a great deal, when in the end they will pay more for streaming as those costs that Amazon is putting on the streaming services will be paid by them in the end. #2 Wouldn't this movement be (potentially)…

It's called the razor-and-blade model, it's not a bait and switch. RE Plex, that's basically what Android TV does, except it's better than Plex (for streaming services and device manufacturers) and has the same model as FireTV

Can you explain how? The situation here is:

- Customers bought the devices without the 30% rule in effect

- Amazon introduces the 30% rule

- Customers will now be asked higher prices to make up for the lost revenue

The razor-and-blade model is about selling one product cheap to increase sales on a complementary good. It's not about a vendor changing the situation, as is the case here.

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#74
post #34

Point #1: This bait-and-switch tactic shouldn't be allowed by consumer regulations (Not in the US, but here in Brazil it would be a no-no) as in the end Amazon is tricking it's use base into paying for the Fire TV as a great deal, when in the end they will pay more for streaming as those costs that Amazon is putting on the streaming services will be paid by them in the end. #2 Wouldn't this movement be (potentially)…

Umm no need to pay for many or any streaming service then that consumer problem is solved just watch the free outlets like YouTube. Hollywood's biggest competitor is content creators on Youtube, Tiktok, etc ... my bet is they will need to compete and many paid offerings will consolidate and become free / less expensive to compete with all the free content creators on YouTube, Tiktok and etc. If you look at where the…

Youtube isn't free. It is either a paid service or via advertising. Neither of those is free.

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really surprised that no one has bothered (or managed) to create an open-source TEE emulator. I mean, there's a ton of different ARM CPUs around there, and it's all ARM under the hood, so it should be possible to create a virtual TEE/TPM and provide it transparently to a VM?

What I'm more surprised, is that since most of the decoding and stuff is done on the GPU anyways, and the GPU has to be HDCP compliant, why can't they just directly send the stream to the GPU as is, tell it where to display it, and be done with it.

Well, then you couldn't have a play button, or pause button, or video text over the top of the video; unless there was some way of turning the GPU into a hardware-level compositor... which is generally not recognized as a good idea.

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#76

The trickle down effects of Apple being a $3T corporation that is widely beloved and did it all on the back of a fiercely guarded walled garden.

What does this have to do with Apple's "walled garden"?

They are able to charge 30% of app revenue because they can. They are a for profit company.

Amazon Fire did not do that because nobody uses it. Now that it has some traction, lo and behold, they want their cut as well.

If anything, Roku is the direct competitor (low cost streaming stick) and they take 30% ad revenue. But Apple gets the blame. lol.

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#77

Low cost computer, free software updates, backend infrastructure, several years of functional life, for $40 in sales (is there any profit there?). Exactly how is it surprising that they need to make some sort of additional revenue via kickback?

The thing I'd point out is that if you're taking 30% of revenue from 4 streaming services, you're getting more revenue than if you operated a streaming service. I agree that these boxes/sticks need some recurring revenue (120% of the revenue of the streaming services). However, should they receive more revenue than the services themselves?

If they're taking 30% from Netflix, 30% from Max, 30% from Disney, and 30% from Paramount, they're getting over $16/mo. Should it be $16/mo per user?

The problem isn't that they need revenue. It's that the revenue demands seem very high compared to the costs of maintaining those boxes. They aren't looking for $10/year to cover their costs and make some profit. They're looking to get more revenue than those actually creating the content.

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#78
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm no need to pay for many or any streaming service then that consumer problem is solved just watch the free outlets like YouTube. Hollywood's biggest competitor is content creators on Youtube, Tiktok, etc ... my bet is they will need to compete and many paid offerings will consolidate and become free / less expensive to compete with all the free content creators on YouTube, Tiktok and etc. If you look at where the…

I'm not convinced that Hollywood really competes with TikTok. Going out for a movie date sounds a lot more interesting than "let's go flop on the couch and watch TikTok/YouTube all evening."

Does Hollywood still make most of its money from theater ticket sales?

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#79
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you just plug a Linux box into your TV and use that? Like am I taking crazy pills. I got fed up with the madness of all the streaming sticks, and putting in my password with a crappy remote and ended up dropping $300 on an old desktop from a discount computer store. Spent an hour throwing Ubuntu on it, and now bam, works like a charm. I put the youtube, PBS Kids, and Disney+ (which we later removed) icons o…

> Why can't you just plug a Linux box into your TV and use that? Because most streaming services don't support 4k HDR on Linux. And if I'm spending thousands of dollars for my TV to play 4k HDR content, I want to be able to watch it.

To be fair, it's not the streaming services fault, because Linux (er, Wayland and Xorg) does not support HDR. We're only just starting, on the bleeding edge, to have HDR with proper color management on Linux.

Re: Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

#80
post #66
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is I feel Apple's walls protect me as well as their profits. I do not feel the same about Amazon/Microsoft/Meta/Google.

[flagged]

I'm in the Google ecosystem but I agree with the sentiment. Apple has no financial incentive to collect my data. Since they've begun differentiating themselves through their emphasis on privacy I think they have a financial incentive to protect my privacy.
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