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

arstechnica.com

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

#91

Post by wkat4242 »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #21
smoldesu wrote: post #2

Amazon's FireTV experience is pretty bad. Even as someone who pays for Prime, it's hard to escape the "ad carousel" interface when you just want to watch TV. That being said , I still use mine regularly for one reason; sideloading. You can install YouTube clients with SponsorBlock and ad-skipping built in. You can download Steam's streaming client and connect a controller, or load up Kodi with SFTP streaming from you…

> Even as someone who pays for Prime, it's hard to escape the "ad carousel" interface when you just want to watch TV. I've recently (last week-ish) started to get the ads, too (I'm in France). But they don't seem to have made their way in the actual Prime Video app. I actually always used the "app" because I much preferred the organization.

Here in Spain they've been in there for 2 years. Not even their shows, but for chocolates, perfumes etc

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

#92

Post by nerdponx »

Ancalagon wrote: post #75

> The changes [showing more ads for money] mirror similar moves from others in the TV maker industry. Tbh this is every industry at this point and its driving me nuts.

And why not? From the perspective of any individual company, it's free money. Some consumers will leave or switch to other products, but most won't, either because they're already locked into your product ecosystem or because there's no equivalent competitor. So you just need to make more money overall than you lose on the minority of sales or subscriptions that you lose.

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

#93

Post by thinkingtoilet »

manicennui wrote: post #33

Are there any Smart TVs that aren't stuffed with ads? Apple TV might be the least bad, but it still allows apps to display recommended nonsense on the home screen when they are highlighted.

I just bought a large computer monitor and use an old computer to stream. The quality is absolutely fine.

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

#94

Post by whalesalad »

manicennui wrote: post #33

Are there any Smart TVs that aren't stuffed with ads? Apple TV might be the least bad, but it still allows apps to display recommended nonsense on the home screen when they are highlighted.

only for home row apps. tbh you’re being a lil over dramatic they aren’t ads they are showing a subset of available content. being able to swipe over the Netflix app and get a clean grid of the current top content on Netflix without opening it is a great feature.

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

#95

Post by tshaddox »

snoman wrote: post #48
sneak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple TVs in the default configuration show large video ads for Apple stuff in the hero unit on the homescreen, same as Amazon is being accused of doing in TFA.

Fair criticism but to clarify: The default is that if you press home on the controller, it loads up the AppleTV app, where it will show ads for AppleTV content. Pressing home again goes to the actual home, where you select the app you want to watch (YouTube, Netflix, etc.). There are no ads there.

The AppleTV app will show Apple TV+ content by default, but once you've logged into other streaming services it will show a variety of content based on things you've watched across all your streaming apps. I suppose showing Apple TV+ content at all is technically "showing ads," but it's about as innocuous as one could imagine.

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

#96

Post by mholm »

kkielhofner wrote: post #63
snoman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had Roku, FireTV, and Chromecast, and I have had hdcp and/or performance issues with everything but Apple TV. I hate that I’ve turned into something of an fanboy but Apple TV follows the same old story from Apple: expensive but it consistently just works.

> same old story from Apple: expensive but it consistently just works. Not to mention at least you know where they're hitting you - up front, on the hardware. It's like the people that complain about a Macbook being 20% more (or whatever), buying a PC-something, and then coming back complaining that Windows is loaded with ads or Linux has all kinds of issues on it. I'm with you - I went from being a die-hard Linux de…

Additionally, if you're willing to resell when you're done with them, you can often get that 'Apple tax' back on the resale price difference.

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

#97

Post by Consultant32452 »

snoman wrote: post #43
jdminhbg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. People always complain that the AppleTV is too expensive vs the competition, but stuff like this is exactly why.

I’ve had Roku, FireTV, and Chromecast, and I have had hdcp and/or performance issues with everything but Apple TV. I hate that I’ve turned into something of an fanboy but Apple TV follows the same old story from Apple: expensive but it consistently just works.

I was a Roku fanboy until they started installing new apps/channels or whatever on the device without prompting me. Now I simp for Apple TV.

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

#98

Post by hnlmorg »

mmh0000 wrote: post #73
hnlmorg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only works as long as TVs connect to the internet via WiFi. Unfortunately there are protocols out there for IoT that bypass per device WiFi settings entirely by setting up mesh networks.

Amazon Sidewalk[1][2] being one of the biggest players: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Sidewalk [2] https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?node=21328123011

Indeed.

Devices can also ship eSIM too. But at least that comes with bigger cost than just the radio chipset.

I believe 5g can all support meshing. But I don’t know a whole lot about that.

Suffice to say, what little control we have now is going to disappear completely over the next decade.

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

#99

Post by buildbot »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #39
bombcar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is to verify that the TV will return to just showing "HDMI 1" or whatever after power off. Because the smart TVs have a history of returning to whatever ads they want to show after power on.

My particular TV, if it's never been connected to the internet, will not show any ads. It will show a notification that it isn't connected to the internet when you turn it on, but it will work fine otherwise. It'll even switch to the correct video input if you power it on through that port, say through a firetv stick. Otherwise, there's a setting for power on behaviour: 1. go to home screen 2. Go to last used input.

Even better, if you can avoid accepting the ToS for the apps, they don't even start. My Samsung TV is so snappy now because I reset it and ignore the accept ToS button :)

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

#100

Post by mholm »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #71
sharkweek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple TV advertises its own content when you are on the homepage (even as a non-Apple TV+ subscriber so it's a little more aggressive than like sitting on the Netflix homepage as a subscriber) but as far as I can tell nothing more than that. Been a user for the last 7-8 years and I love the UX.

A year or two back they changed the home button to actually go to their TV app, fortunately this can be reverted in the options. Otherwise, there aren’t really any ads except that if you linger over their app icon, it has a kind of “now showing” effect (no sound though). Seems a little more privileged compared to other apps in how much of the Home Screen it can use, but it’s really not obtrusive. I really like my App…

I've seen a few other apps display content in the same way. Seems like it's just an 'underused' feature, rather than a private API.
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