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
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.
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.
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.
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?
Looking forward to the 1 yr free trial of my new TV, before I have to subsribe to Samsung+ for just 15.99 per month to turn it on.
I cannot stand how believable this scenario is.
Roku tvs already do that, you even need to put in a credit card number for it to work.
You can choose not to connect a Roku TV to the Internet during the initial setup, and you just get access to live TV and the HDMI inputs with (obviously) no streaming channels or updates. It works fine as a dumb TV.
And the credit card thing? That's after you create your account on their website, you can just close the browser window. Or click the button saying "skip" or "later" or whatever it is.
If you buy a Sony Bravia you can put them into “pro mode” which keeps all the signal processing, but lets you turn off android.
Agreed. You can buy the displays that are marketed to businesses and usually come without all of the invasive smart features.
They definitely cost more on average, but they’re also built to run more often or constantly, and hold up far better. They’re even a lot more customizable.
You can buy some that come with slots where you put in a raspberry pi or another computer of your choice, instead of whatever OS that comes with smart tvs.
At this point, I’m starting to regularly check if there are “for business customers” options available when I need something, because the options for regular consumers are getting so bad with all this data hoarding and ad pushing.
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.
I have you tagged as 'probably actually her' just because I want it to be true.
And as I've said here before: I just play her on TV.
Which is a fantastic answer, but this is Lemmy, not TV, and Margot Robbie's name is Margot Robbie.
I'm not trying to call you out, nor draw you out though. I'm not into parasocial relationships, but I do love the idea of Lemmy's first celebrity user being the actor that literally played Barbie. It's just a delightful thought.
But being the first novelty account: also fine.
These are all important milestones for Lemmy.
I completely forgot about tags. My first Lemmy tag is now 'probably actually her.'
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.
They agreed, they just didn't read the terms and conditions
Fuck that. That isn't an excuse. The ToS are abused by companies all the time.
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”.
The original cast-only chromecasts didn’t have ads as far as I know, but they’ve all been discontinued and replaced by the google tv chromecasts which have ads integrated throughout the interface, mostly just for streaming services, movies, etc.
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.
and a separate little Android TV box I got from AliExpress for 25 bucks were I only use Kodi.
Yeah, so you may not be seeing ads, but there's a non-zero chance you have a botnet infested device on your network instead.
There's been a lot of articles recently about those cheapo boxes being filled with spyware straight out the factory. Might wanna check that out.
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.
Anyone that didn't know that was the end game was not paying attention.
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.
There is a big lack of consumer education in the U.S. I don't know how to solve it in our oligarchical society. The corporations don't want consumers educated.
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.
Ads can be a reasonable price to pass for free or discounted content.
The issue is that every day, every year, they are finding new ways to shove even more ads. The more they're shoved, the less reasonable it becomes. Where the line between reasonable and unacceptable is will vary per person. However, there is a point where enough becomes enough and you just become done with them.
In theory, I'm fine with some ads. Useful ads in places where it makes sense (like shopping). Small, unobtrusive ads that fill up otherwise empty space. But ads are like capitalism and cancer. They just continue to grow and grow and get worse and worse until they've utterly destroyed the thing they were meant to support. If you let them in, it's only a matter of time until they completely take over. No one has managed to do 'reasonable ads' for any great length of time.
It's just one of those things where in theory it sounds workable, but in practice it's highly destructive and corrosive towards everything.
Advertising is intended to manipulate preferences and choices. Why would I willingly subject myself to such manipulation?
How is this surprising?
PSA: It is incredibly easy to get an alternative launcher for android TVs. Zero ads. Literally none.
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.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
