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After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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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.
pihole
Is this...an ad?
A solution. Is it an Ad when it is for something you do yourself that solves problems about which you've publicly complained? Think there is another word for that. hmm. It sure suggests something that is specifically designed as being a definition for that. Sure suggests something, but I guess we'll never know. I'd appreciate anyone recommendation upon a good word to use when someone offers a solution to something about which you complained. Any suggested recommendation would be welcome.
Top tier sarcasm lol
Aniki got it. Endorsement.
Jokes, of course ❤️
This is why my 'smart' TV will never, ever be connected to the internet. It's an LG so I would expect it to not be onerous, but it's often nagging me to connect to my router for stuff like AI tools.
No thanks. You're smart enough already for my use, TV! HDMI only please.
I'm a firm believer that smart should be self contained. If a device needs the internet, it's not that smart since it has to rely on outside sources to work properly.
Although I agree with the sentiment. It’s like saying people that research are not smart.
They should all just be thinkers like Einstein, let some other dummy find the proof.
You can disable the AI in the settings.
They're not late. I've been using Fire Sticks for years and Amazon has been working hard the whole time to shove more and more ads all over the UI. The main row of apps gets smaller with every update and more and more ads are plastered around and between them to try to sell you more shit you don't want or already have.
I managed to jailbreak mine before they locked them down and install a custom launcher so they're actually usable, but the stock UI is god-awful. I'll be replacing them once the next round of Apple TVs come out.
The Nvidia Shield Pro is quite capable. Sideload a different launcher and install Aerial Views and you're good to go!
How did they lock them down?
Pushed a software update that disabled third party launchers and disallowed disabling future software updates.
Oh, shit!
My Xiaomi Mi Box S 4K doesn't auto-update because there's not enough storage space left.
No idea if Xiaomi have pushed any Amazon-level evil updates since last update though.
All I know is, 3rd-party launchers changed my life for the better, and I don't want it to change anytime soon.
My favorite 3rd party launchers
AndroidTV
Android
It's not new, Amazon just changed their policy allowing ads for non-media. The Fire devices have always been primarily vehicles for ads; they take up the entire lockscreen on the Kindle reader and Fire tablets. On Fire TV, the top 40-ish% of the screen is a giant ad, then you get a tiny carousel of recommendations, then another thinner banner ad, then "your" content like queue and watchlist.
My Apple TV has no ads.
One of my home monitoring cameras suddenly started placing ad watermarks on my video feed - I shit you not. I feel like obstitricians are going to start slapping ad stickers on newborns bellies as they pull them out soon enough. I hate it. I'm not completely sure what the answer is, but I've always been a proponent of the micropayment idea as a way to navigate digital life with more focus and less dependence on ads but it's not caught on at all because HEY FREE!!
Thank gosh my PS5 doesn’t yet have ads when I launch a game
My tcl doesn't have ads. Probably because it already knows I'll ignore them and it's selling that data
TLC was discussed above https://lemmy.world/comment/5181873
Your comment sounds like you might already be aware, but maybe you were just assuming it's doing the same spying most smart TVs are probably doing.
Mine is Roku based so the article doesn't apply, but yes I'm still assuming they are pulling and selling data to subsidize up front cost and fluff profits