Not mentioning ads at all in an announcement about a service that adds ads to apps to replace the fee isn't being sneaky?
It's pretty obvious in the documentation and on every page except for the original product announcement that it's ad supported, but I don't expect Amazon to use a bunch of their 200-word product announcement to justify why there are ads.
The important point is that it's free, meaning I don't pay for it with dollars. When is the last time a free product shouted "BTW it's only free because of ads?!" I felt like it was implied, and I don't expect marketing to be like, "And here are the tradeoffs you have to make and that you might not like." When you download an app from the current app store (Apple or Google) it says "Free," even if the app includes ads.
I don't feel slighted one bit.
If you want to repurpose the word to mean "free with no ads" you can do that, but you can't expect others to hold to that definition.
"Free" and "ad-supported" mean completely different things, and always have done.
"Free" in the context Amazon is using it (what Richard Stallman would refer to as Gratis) means that I do not have to pay money for something. That is a literal economic/dictionary definition.
Therefore, ad-supported in this context is a subset of "Free," as is any other form of non-monetary subsidization. So long as the end user is not paying, it is free.
The Free Software Foundation is free, but not ad-supported (though it strives to be free both in the sense "libre" (open/available) and "gratis" (not costing dollars).
If you show ads you're costing your users brain cycles and creating distraction and friction. The cost isn't monetary, but it's still a real indirect cost.
If it wasn't a real cost, ad-blockers would hardly be as popular as they are - and the ad industry wouldn't be quite so worried about them.
IMO the idea that anyone can believe the two models are identical from the user's point of view is not encouraging.
It's not free if I have to spend time servicing your revenue stream, unless you reimburse me at my market rate for my time that you spent/wasted.
To act like that is not a real cost is...baffling.
wut?
The way Amazon is using "free" the definition means that you don't pay money for it. Full stop.
There are other ways of calculating what your "costs" are, such as including opportunity cost (what you're referring to as "time wasted." If you use that definition of "free," literally nothing is ever free, as you're always forgoing something else.