After luring customers with low prices, Amazon stuffs Fire TVs with ads | Hacker News Reader

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

arstechnica.com

344 pointsMBCook282 comments

If you own a FireTV stick or display you'll notice that the FreeVee streaming app has started to become more and more prominent. It's deceptively simple - they are taking old shows like Murder She Wrote and streaming them non-stop on a "channel" much like the old terrestrial broadcast networks did. They're solving the streaming problem for older customers that don't grok Netflix or Hulu.

These shows take pseudo-commercial breaks and send you 2-3 ads tailored to you specifically. My wife didn't believe it until I did a simple Amazon search on my phone for automotive batteries. Not more than 30 minutes later the ads switched to some random LiPo battery for RVs.

Linear streaming is central to PlutoTV, which has been around for a while and is available on many platforms.

It’s not really for people “that don’t grok Netflix or Hulu”. That’s one reason, I suppose, but the stronger reasons are:

1. Licensing and cost nonsense that none of us care about.

2. Channel surfing is an entirely different way to engage with low-attention content and has its own place. You may not “grok it” yourself, but the gist is that it greatly reduces the analysis paralysis of picking movies and episodes and doesn’t make you feel like you’re sitting down to watch something from start to finish. You just surf around and leave something and let it play. The lack of control is intentional and positive, and it can be a great avenue for discovery in a world where every on-demand front page has been lost to poor algorithm recommendations.

The casual discovery was the thing people missed the most about cable TV. This comes close, as in they're linear channels of the same program in most cases, but it's familiar enough to work.

I recently bought a "smart TV" and I was pleased to see that it comes with essentially 'cable TV' (IPTV, I guess?) without even needing to run an app or set up an account. You just click CH+/- or guide and you watch another channel. One of the channels plays 21 Jump Street (the 80's show) and a few other 80's classics, another 2 just play 80's/90's music videos exclusively. I think it's kind of neat that the internet has finally come around to make cable TV obsolete.

> I think it's kind of neat that the internet has finally come around to make cable TV obsolete.

As a counterpoint, decisions by the FCC (during the previous presidential administration), are effectively making the internet a requirement for OTA TV in the new ATSC 3.0 spectrum.[1]

Here’s hoping we get more consumer focused considerations in the future. The internet features are nice (if you have internet access) but shouldn’t prevent a consumer from accessing OTA ‘out of the box’

1. https://youtu.be/nClxgUunmeE

I just watched that video a day or 2 ago. I was pretty surprised to see that, and I agree it makes no sense for the case of broadcast TV. My guess is it's a push from sports networks (90% NFL) and they'll arrive at some "compromise" to only turn it on during NFL and NBA games. Not only is it oppressive to viewers, but I think it's a terrible move for local broadcasters by actively blocking people who are already leaving/left in droves for the internet.

Many broadcasters are positioning to accepted the broadcast part of their business as the freemium entry point into their online app. The ads will never be turned off everywhere but the better experience will only be found over the jump.

Funny thing I discovered with mine, when there's an ad during the show, I switch channel and come back. The ad is gone and I now have a "we'll be back in x seconds" screen.

>I think it's kind of neat that the internet has finally come around to make cable TV obsolete.

That's because internet is cable TV these days.

>These shows take pseudo-commercial breaks and send you 2-3 ads tailored to you specifically. My wife didn't believe it until I did a simple Amazon search on my phone for automotive batteries. Not more than 30 minutes later the ads switched to some random LiPo battery for RVs.

This is so depressing. We're living in the future and it's awful.

Eh, it could be worse. For a while Hulu thought I was Hispanic and living in Texas.

Got a lot of ads for the Texas Lottery with Spanish audio.

Ads are ads as far as I'm concerned. They're all universally trash.

Ads, generically, are one thing. Car insurance when I'm not looking for car insurance. The problem with targeted advertising is when they're for something I didn't know I wanted. A band I like is coming to town, or a product that solves a problem I've been having. because then I'm spending money I wasn't previously going to spend.

Car insurance ads when you know they are paying those millions of dollars out of the premiums that you pay, just so they can tell you how cheap their premiums are. That's what ticks me off!

Insurance involves having a large pool of good drivers to subsidize the bad drivers. So the money they spend to make the pool larger could make things better from you; more good drivers, they pay out less claims, they charge you less. It's one business where the "network effect" really matters, and so it's not a guaranteed waste of money like advertising other products is.

(For example, it really doesn't matter whether you drink Coke or Pepsi. Those ads are just inflating the cost of the product; there are no more efficiencies to be had in the production of sugar water.)

I assume there's some regulation against only insuring drivers with perfect records? Otherwise I think I would have heard of it by now. I see the logic you're using, but considering that almost nobody would have insurance if their lender/state didn't force them to, the same number of people would have insurance regardless of whether they advertised. It's a zero-sum game, no? Separately, the same ads that might attract good drivers to my pool could also attract bad, and sadly I suspect that the people who are persuaded by ads are slightly less intelligent and more risky behind the wheel.

I sometimes spam Youtube’s “visit website” button. Just to cost them money. Now Youtube thinks I’m really interested in [that ad from that day] and now shows me all competitors.

I think polluting the data with random shit is the way to go. The mix of ads becomes somewhat entertaining, including the knowledge that I'll never buy any of this stuff.

Get ad nauseam if you want to scale this

I'll have to check that out, thanks

That was the point behind AdNauseam, I think.

I'd much rather my ads be targeted than generic. It increases value on both sides here.

Comparing against the baseline of terrestrial broadcast, this is a far better experience than before.

You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you). The expected utility to you is negative.

You're missing an important nuance. The best advertisement is for a product that, in expectation, makes the most money from me. My relative interest is still important, and you can't just jump from the fact that somebody is making money to the unfounded claim that the "expected utility is negative."

When I buy an item I'm making a decision that the marginal value of that item to me is worth more than the marginal cost. If the ad is targeted, a transaction is more likely to happen. Transactions happen when both parties derive utility from them.

If you advertise only high profit items without concern for the probability of transaction, your audience will not buy anything or end up buying the same item from somebody else.

It's not just that someone is making money. It's not a friendly old man at the local bookstore giving you recommendations based on your tastes. It's a system where all of the battery vendors are bidding in real time to be the one you see, and the most dodgy one with the best margins is the one that can place the best bid, causing you to get the worst possible deal.

These systems are not for your benefit. They are meant to use any information they can to extract more from you.

You assume that they value longterm profits over shortterm ones.

As a customer, you will try of course to get the best deal. The best deal for you is the worst for them, so the target of advertising is convincing you that you are getting the best deal while actually giving you the worst possible.

Targeted advertising is not giving you better deals, but providing you with a greater mismatch between your expectation and the reality. You may get a better deal out of it, but that is an unintended side effect

>You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you). The expected utility to you is negative.

A customer buying something isn't a zero-sum transaction. My default assumption is that the product that stands to make the most money from me is the one that would most benefit me. For example, the grocery store sells apples, which I love, and chicken gizzards, which I don't love. The product which I want most (apples) will stand to make the most money from me. If I didn't know that apples were for sale near me, or that a particular store had particularly delicious apples, I would benefit from that and so would they after I spent my money on them. Win-win, not zero-sum.

That's again assuming the system is making good recommendations for you. That's not what they're meant to do. A much better analogy is you go to the grocery store. The clerk knows you like apples and says "hey, I've got a bag of Johnny's apples here for $6", and pulls out a bag with a sticker that says "Johnny's" on it. Next person comes in, and the clerk offers them a bag of Dan's apples for $3.

The bags come from the same orchard. Same tree. You paid for a sticker. The clerk just knows you make enough money not to notice because they have a dossier on every person in town.

It's not even that... they aren't recommending Apples at all, but they're going to try to get you to buy something else that is more profitable. It's like going into the store and then they're like "Here's a bag of oranges."

If the system has a higher expectation that you will buy the apples, making them the more profitable option to offer, it'll do that. So people aren't entirely wrong in that way. But the point is even when it's "helpful" (by coincidence), it will still do everything it can to screw you. And yeah it'll happily offer you oranges if it thinks it can get you to bite. Or beer, particularly if it knows you're an alcoholic!

> My default assumption is that the product that stands to make the most money from me is the one that would most benefit me.

Well, see, that's where things like cigarettes, liquor, and gambling just blatantly violate that assumption. Ads are psychological manipulation for the advertiser's benefit, hands down.

> You're making the mistake of assuming the ad is for the best offer you'd be interested in instead of the one that makes the most money from you (i.e. the worst one for you)

You are making the mistake of thinking that this is a zero-sum game. The product that makes the most money is not necessarily the worst one, it might actually just be one with higher margins or even an actually superior product that just lacks mindshare; in the end, buying it might still add value to your live.

Markets like Amazon are already full of people who will sell the exact same product with a computer generated brand name at slightly different markup. Even "trustworthy" brands do this kind of thing, and have for a long time. A system that knows everything about you (their goal) and tailors ads to you (or manipulates your ability to find offers) will inevitably converge on something that sells you the same thing, but at the maximum price you can be expected to be duped into.

I wouldn’t because it means they spied on me more often and more effectively. Broadcast TV was one-way except for Nielsen people, and they at least got paid.

Not necessarily, it could mean the ads get better at tricking you into buying something you never use, or that it adds greater costs to the supply chain for something that you would have found out about via conventional means anyway.

"Targeted" ads are not targeted though, they're just trying to sell you the same thing you just bought. It's the most annoying, stupidest, and least effective form of targeting they could possibly use.

PlutoTV is the same. I used to put on the Geek & Sundry channel and get ads from my employer.

I know what you mean but I can't help but imagine a 60 year old man pointing at the camera and saying, "Get back to work, Steve."

> imagine a 60 year old man pointing at the camera and saying, "Get back to work, Winston Smith"

FTFY

Now that's targeted advertising!

I can think of something even more evil. What if ad networks allowed the advertiser to SUBSCRIBE to events generated by the ad viewer. For example, XYZ Toothpaste Inc gets a web hook that Targeted Consumer 123 has just started streaming TV Show "Foobar".

It's not quite what you're describing, but look up demand side platforms. At scale, advertisers are given the opportunity to bid on real time events.

It's funny reading offhand remarks like this because I laugh and then remember I'm well past 60

Should employers advertise how good it is to work, to their own demographic?

Terrestrial cable is the same, too. I had a normal cable package for awhile (around 2020) and the advertisers clearly knew that my wife was in a particular medical category.

Same w/ IPTV services like SlingTV, which I also used for a little while.

Amazon Video is also now including FreeVee garbage entries blended into “included with” results and it’s easy to miss unless you train yourself to check the source line above “Watch now” before pressing play. It seems this is mostly evident when looking at Customers also watched recommendations but I’ve seen it happen in the home sections, too.

I hate it.

The trick is to never give your TV access to the internet and to pair it with an Apple TV. If you buy a TV and it won't even boot or work without an internet connection - return it and get a different one.

That works fine with a TV. I bought one knowing that the "smart" features weren't all that great. I tried connecting it to the internet, and it felt more sluggish, although it's a brand new 2023 model. I was able to reset it to factory defaults and it's working well enough for what I bought it for (the image is very good, at least for my needs). For reference, it's a TCL with Google TV.

But the Fire TV TFA talks about... well, the whole point of the thing is to stream internet content. So not connecting it to the internet kinda defeats 90% of the thing's purpose.

The fire stick is the pure streaming dongle, a Fire TV is an actual TV which includes that dongle built in and sold at a discount.

So, buying a cheap Amazon fire TV and not connecting it to the internet is a reasonable choice for a cheap ‘dumb’ TV.

There's also the "Fire TV" which is a streaming box and not a stick, sold from 2015 to 2022, which doesn't help the confusion in the naming.

you can still stream stuff - just use something else and just leverage it as a cheap display.

Unless it won't work if not connected to the internet (wouldn't put it past them).

I bought my Xbox mainly because it was the best/cheapest option for a 4K bluray player. I think I've loaded a game on it a handful of times at best, but watched lots of movies and other content with it. Thanks gamers for subsidizing a great BR player!

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 :)

Makes sense.

Telemetry takes packets out of your bandwidth.

These boxes have constant calls so… yeah free that space up

This is step beyond that, none of the crappy Tizen apps or anything start at all. The TV never gets network access of course :)

The FireTV is not an actual television set. It's the "something else" that you use to stream content to a screen with no internet connection.

No, in this case it is actually a full size TV that has the same OS as the FireTV stick.

My bad, I only quickly skimmed TFA, didn't think these were actual TVs since they're not available where I live last time I checked.

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.

> 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 desktop, Kodi, Android, etc, etc user to just saying "the hell with it" and plunking down for Apple products.

They're expensive and they're not perfect either but my life is much less stressing and annoying as a result.

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.

Apple works unless you need something specific that every other devices supports but apple doesn't.

I've never had a great experience with any laptop but at least I can't say I didn't get screwed on the price most of the time (non apple times). Who remembers how apple didn't admit or fix the Nvidia GPU on their laptop for years but it was easy to just get a new ipod?

That nVidia GPU issue was a design flaw on nVidia's part that nVidia refused to take responsibility for.

The problem is that normal use and wear and tear over time would lead to the GPU physically failing, leading to a non-bootable system and necessitating a whole new logic board.

Apple had a long standing special service program of covering (very expensive) logic board replacements for all of those MacBook Pros that were usually well out of of warranty¹ because Apple gave a damn about making it right whereas nVidia refused to even acknowledge the issue.

Source: I was a Mac Genius at an Apple Store from 2008 to 2013.

1) https://www.macrumors.com/2017/05/20/apple-ends-2011-macbook...

Apple was supposed to vet them. I expect that answer from razer.

Only took a few years for them to admit it failed under normal use, by that time it was long outdated. I don't pretend waiting at the apple store is a luxury anymore. The brand is tainted to me.

Dell, HP, and Compaq were also affected by the issue. The issue was with the die packaging, nearly impossible to catch post-production.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/10/nvidia-settle...

I’m not going to universally defend Apple (because no one can) but when you have to go back 10 years to come up with an example that as other commenters have noted was a supplier issue it’s not as strong an argument as you may think.

It was my last relationship with a new Mac, and it will remain that way. Why you want to attack my experience I'm uncertain.

I'm not attacking your experience, in the end you got burnt by this (regardless of who was at fault) and that was your experience. That's fair.

That said, as other commenters have noted it wasn't an Apple issue. Nvidia shirked responsibility and Apple stepped up. This is one of the examples where Apple has earned their reputation for user experience and overall "premium" brand halo. They took the loss and replaced any failures related to this fiasco for six years - well beyond the standard warranty period.

In another comment I noted my very poor experience with Framework. It was so bad I basically do what you do and trash them at every opportunity - to me they deserve it. You obviously feel the same way from your Apple experience. The difference is in my case they took no responsibility whatsoever and I'm left with a nearly-useless $3k machine. That's buying first gen hardware from a startup for you, and I should have known better. You bought hardware from a leading and well established brand where this never should have happened. That's far worse.

I mentioned the ten years because a decade in the life of a tech company that has sold billions of devices across multiple product lines and generations in the meantime is (in my mind) a pretty weak argument and borderline irrational stance. You're holding on to a decade old grudge against a brand that has famously happy, dedicated, and loyal users. Apple isn't the most valuable company in the world because your experience is anywhere near typical.

I would hope that in ten years time (or sooner) I will have gotten over my issues with Framework (if they're still around) and would be willing to try them again. I guess we'll see if I'm able to let it go by then.

Apple made a bad computer by using components that were known to break down. Nvidia GPUs on mobile still break that way, and have broken in gaming laptops all the time. It took years for them to admit fault, by that time the computer was worthless. My friends Intel MacBook was good at first and it got worst and worst, he was glad he got applecare. His m1 Mac is doing great, but I'd call the quality closer to the consumer electronic I mentioned earlier. I've had other used MacBooks and laptops since, but apples customer service had gotten worst and there's long waits. If he didn't have apple care for the Intel one he would have hated his Mac too.

Framework is probably not going to be around in less than 10 years. I'm happy some products but not the Apple company. Waiting for hours to be sent away at the apple store is never a luxury and a dreadful experience.

> components that were known to break down

If this was as obvious and well-known as you make it seem it boggles the mind how a primarily hardware company like Apple missed this. I suspect hindsight is 20/20 here. I also have two Nvidia Apple Intel Macbooks (one of which lives in my trunk) that weren't bit by this. Anecdotes, you know.

> My friends Intel MacBook was good at first and it got worst and worst

I'm sitting next to my 2013 Mac Book that I still use daily for occasional testing. The thing just won't die or give me any issues. Anecdotes.

> Waiting for hours to be sent away at the apple store is never a luxury and a dreadful experience.

They at least have the Apple Store available (show me another consumer hardware manufacturer that has anything similar), and needless to say your experiences (again) don't match mine. I've been to multiple Apple Stores in multiple states time and time again and never experienced this. The last time I was at their EXTREMELY busy store on Michigan Ave in Chicago I was in and out inside of 15 minutes. They just handed me a brand new Apple Watch (no AppleCare even) and offered to set it up for me (declined).

I'm not sure what's going on in your world but my social circle is almost exclusively iMessage-blue and I've never heard anything like this. Quite the contrary, actually, and reflective of their overall great reputation for customer service and support.

Dedicated GPUs break on gaming laptops and do often. It's not unknown, apple underclocked it after to prevent it happening again. I love my Apple electronics but their Intel laptops sucked for me.

Now that you mention it, I had a bad experience with their batteries dying in the cold for a while, and luckily I had applecare and it took mutiple geniuses to decide it was a problem even though the problem was known.

It's funny, when I was in Chicago the Michigan one was always AWFUL for me (never helped, swamped with people, appointments were hard to come by) and the one by the Northside was awesome and much better with CS. Maybe management changed, but it's at best inconsistent with our experiences. The times I went in, I heard tons of other people with the same failures I had, some were sent away and some were helped.

How many times did you go to get problems fixed?

Macbook costs like 3x compared to competitors. For example, Apple M1 8 Core score on cpubenchmark is about 14000. If you look for non-Apple laptops with equivalent CPU score, they would cost around $450. And they support Linux.

The only good thing in Macbook is display, which covers more than 100% of sRGB color space and has giantic resolution. I wish it could be bought separately and installed into a normal laptop.

Artificial benchmarks are interesting but as another personal anecdote, I bought a maxed-out Framework for over $3000 a couple of years ago when I was still Linux desktop oriented. Way more RAM, storage, faster on benchmarks than anything Apple at the time.

It was the worst machine I've ever had. One day after doing yet another plug-unplug-reboot-wtf dance to get a display to work (that just worked the day before) I threw my hands up, went to Best Buy and bought some random basic Macbook Pro for $1200 (lower specs, of course). I don't know what the specs or benchmarks look like, I don't care. I just need a tool to do my work.

What I do know is that it runs for at least weeks at a time, does absolutely everything I need it to do, and I never feel like I'm waiting for it. Plug/unplug displays, thunderbolt docks, open/close the lid, don't charge it for days at time. Just runs along - cool and silent. I open it, get my work done, close it. Day after day.

I absolutely guarantee that even if this Macbook was $6000 I'm way ahead in terms of productivity not to mention stress and frustration - which I value very, very highly.

It's been "Ohhh, this is NICE" experiences like this that have chipped away at my previous thinking and pulled me further and further towards Apple. Still not perfect (of course) but the time I spend fixing my tools vs being productive isn't even close.

I'm probably just getting old and cranky but I have very little patience for BS at this point in my life. When I was 13 figuring out why RedHat 5.2 didn't boot on my AMD K6 was fun. It's not fun anymore.

Most MacBooks feel like Pareto-optimal machines. There exist other laptops with better displays, faster CPUs, better speakers, or just cheaper, but I'm pretty sure there are no alternatives with better or equal everything.

My experience buying laptops in 2023 was that most of what I found was cheap junk. Even when I was buying stuff in the $1800-$2500 price range, it was mostly junk with build quality problems, incomplete support for the hardware (USB-C especially being an issue), and terrible thermals.

I don't really like Apple as a company but I just hand them money and they give me a laptop that works without any nonsense. Maybe I'm just too old and overpaid nowadays but I legitimately feel like laptop manufacturers other than Apple are in a self-destructive race-to-the-bottom with each other.

Performance is not the only meaningful metric when evaluating the total value of a laptop.

Screen, keyboard, build quality, and a whole host of other factors contribute to it.

> If you look for non-Apple laptops with equivalent CPU score, they would cost around $450. And they support Linux.

And their battery lasts almost two hours.

And they're made of cheap plastic, have horrible keyboard flexing, and their trackpads suck.

I am envious of gp though, I kind of miss being younger and thinking the only thing that mattered in a laptop was raw CPU/GPU performance.

Apple Silicon Macbooks also support Linux.

Oh, by the way in a $450 laptop you can upgrade memory and SSD.

The other nice thing about Apple TVs is that their hardware isn’t so terribly underpowered compared to other streaming boxes, which is why my Apple TV 4K first gen from 2017 is still snappy running current tvOS, as well as why it can play back media encoded in formats that aren’t hardware accelerated without hiccups.

So yes, it cost me more than a competing box would’ve in 2017, but it’s given me smooth problem free operation the entire time and there’s no sign of that changing any time soon.

I just hook a nuc or similar sff Linux PC to my old 1080p Sony TV and I'm good. All the major streaming sites work in a browser. Best part is I can pause or open another tab and just surf the web in a normal up to date browser.

Same reason I've become an iPhone fanboy - the alternatives were simply unbearable at some point and the iPhone... was ok. Apparently, consistently ok is a high bar.

Can't say that about macOS, though - it's consistently below expectations for me.

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.

I'm using Roku everywhere at this point and haven't run into any issues. Big fan.

I've found the Roku UI to be pretty laggy every time I used it. It seems to be running at 10 FPS or something. Huge turn-off.

Try the Plex app on your TV.

lol... give it time. Apple does NOT miss a nickel.

What a low-effort comment. Can you answer the question of how long Apple has made the Apple TV? Based on that history, how much time should we "give" for your prediction to come true? Please be specific.

Youre setting a false premise.

To answer your question: 1st generation: January 9, 2007; 16 years ago

Advertising wasn't the same in 2007, compared to 2023, so counting all of those years is disingenuous.

This is also a company that vigorously lobbies for anti-right-to-repair.

Lastly, youre defending a company that sells things like a $1k monitor stand, with a straight face. There is no justifiable reason for a basic monitor stand to be $1k. None. Zero. No, not even then.

GL with trusting Apple to not shaft its customers. There are many, many, examples to the contrary.

The original Apple TV was released in 2007, over sixteen years ago.

How much time should we give it?

I would suggest we wait until you realize that advertising in 2007 was nothing like advertising in 2023, so counting the first 5-10 years is wholly inaccurate.

You may feel differently about that, since you're defending a company you apparently have loyalty to.

GL with that.

It's entirely possible to say someone is wrong without loving what they are wrong about.

Nevertheless, ignoring the first ten years--which is your high estimate--how long should we wait past that?

I’m sure we’ll see TVs with built-in AI tools to create new generative ads. Maybe they could include little cameras, so they could keep an eye out for any Amazon products in their house. This would help achieve Amazon’s apparent goal of advertising things I’ve already bought from them to me.

Or, they could just include a little cellphone radio. Probably only need to phone home once every couple months to get the new ads.

And remember: hard drive space is cheap nowadays. You might not ever connect your TV to the internet, but it can at least record fingerprints for everything you watch. Maybe your kids will connect it to the internet some day, or you’ll hand it down to somebody else, and then that poor trapped taste-profile information can finally make the trip back to Amazon’s servers.

I've had a TCL Roku TV since 2018 and it was always sluggish using the apps through its default interface. I got an AppleTV last year and the ease of use & lack of input lag or advertisements was a breath of fresh air.

Don't worry, smartphones will begin to fill the gaps, we pay for them, but the Industry does whatever it wants with them. In about a year, we may well have to watch 2 ads before making phone calls with the way things are going, while we of course pay even higher fees for mobile service (of course).

maybe on an android device but this is unheard of in the Apple ecosystem

iPhone have plenty of adverts. They’re just integrated in a way that you don’t always notice. Eg

- I just opened the App Store and the whole of the screen is taken up by two adverts.

- in settings, the 1st option is an add for Apple Care.

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.

At some point they're gonna put a cheap cellular modem or something like Amazon Sidewalk in all new TVs.

Then you open up the TV and disconnect the modem.

Meh, I own an LG CX and I have never seen a single ad on it - the app integration is so good I can't imagine needing to mess with another device just to use streaming services. Just don't buy ad-ridden crap from Samsung and others, I guess?

TBF that’s a higher end TV. I love mine.

The lower the cost, the more likely this crud is. If you buy a $250 55” TV you’re (unknowingly) signing up for ads.

Sadly, there isn’t much middle ground anymore. Ads and spying, or a ton of money (and spying).

Sony sells TVs that cost just a bit more than the competition but you can easily not opt-in to ads during initial setup (they are not selected by default!).

Sadly Google seems to insist on showing YT recommendations to matter what on Google tvs, but you can just opt into "app only mode" and then you get none of that.

I would put Sony in my second category above. High quality TVs, and a price to match.

The fact they use Google gives me pause. My last TV was a Sony with Google and it was slow as dirt (Sony’s fault, since fixed on newer models). And it was a great TV otherwise. But I don’t trust Google not to find a way to shove ads in later.

Sony's tvs are broken into price tiers, they have low end ones with garbage picture quality, medium tier tvs with better picture and a better CPU, and high end ones with excellent image quality.

Sadly neither Sony tv I have had (including one I just bought) are able to stay connected to my wifi for more than an hour or so before losing connection....

Sony is not known for the quality of their software...

Yeah I’ve been on the wrong side of their software quality before. It’s too bad. The electronics are top notch, as always.

PlayStation has the religion, but the rest of their consumer stuff doesn’t.

Our 55" A95K has Google TV built in but we never use it and it has never seen a packet from an outside network since we got it. We use Apple TV with it, and for that purpose, it is very fast and easy to use.

Perhaps some models don't but I don't think it's a free m given.

https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/320778-how-to-stop-l...

Ugh, the Vizio I have became cancer after awhile. Even with it offline, it will automatically change the input to their spyware entertainment app after 10 seconds of no input. No ability to disable this malicious automatic switch.

Do Apple TVs not display ads? I have Google TV devices, in part because I can install what er I want on them, including 3rd part launchers that don't have ads.

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.

If you count the top-app-row preview as an ad, maybe there are ads. If you move the tv+ app off the top row you don’t see anything by Apple.

There are no app suggestions or notifications on Apple TV (or at least I turned them off about 8 years ago).

I have been happily streaming media off my computer with Apple TV and have never had a single issue with it.

I have Spotify at the top left of the clickable icons and the top row of the screen shows Spotify’s suggestions.

Oh that's interesting, didn't even think about moving it.

Even then though, I'm an on-again/off-again Plus subscriber so I don't even mind it because it often times suggests shows that I might want to subscribe for.

I'm not sure how many Apple TV devices they sell, but I've always viewed it as super underrated, just a clean piece of hardware with great "It Always Works" functionality.

You can get around this by being selective with the apps on the home row. I have the Home Sharing, Settings, Search, Photos, and Podcasts apps on the home row. No ads.

Even then I don't quite consider it quite ad-free. Content I've purchased in iTunes Movies or iTunes TV Shows will always show the store on launch or will switch to the store if you pause content for some amount of time.

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 Apple TV.

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.

So it's not adfree at all? That's all I see on my tv with Android TV as well.

Sony does this too

Apps pinned to the top row of the home screen can show their own custom content in the top portion of the screen when highlighted. By default, the Apple TV app is in that row and shows you slides for TV+ content. That is as close to built-in advertising as it gets.

My solution was to just get an old box that was cheap, plug it into the TV with an HDMI cord, add a wireless mouse and keyboard, and viola. I have a viewing experience that is on par with what most other people have without having to have a locked down device that I don't control attached to my tv and spying on me.

Plus I can use it to play Steam games, so gaming console and media device all in one.

I have a regular old computer connected to my TV, I find it much more robust and under my control than any purpose built device. Steam to stream games from my PC, browser or VLC for everything else. Haven't seen a recent apple TV in action though so maybe they're more capable than I think they are.

Can we hack the TVs? These things have computers inside. Surely we can run software in these things.

Even if it requires an internet connection, it surely has an option to start up on the Apple TV input, bypassing the home screen.

I have a Roku TV (it was free) that I've never connected to the internet. Even when starting it up with an Apple TV it'll still hang out on the Roku home screen for 5s before even starting the input change.

It's pretty infuriating and definitely an intentional dark pattern.

That is a device that belongs in the trash. I have always bought the cheaper Sony TVs ($600 to $700) and never experienced anything like that. All I ever do is use the Apple TV remote and it just turns the TV on directly to that.

AppleTv is amazing, and I use it for everything but YouTube. For YouTube, I use a Fire stick with SmartTubeNext

I have YT Premium so I use/enjoy the native app.

Smarttube has sponsorblock built in. Even though I have YT Premium, it’s a much better experience than stock app for this feature alone.

For cheapskates like me, Walmart sells an ONN Google TV box for like $20. Make sure to get the 2023 version, it's a much improved upgrade from one released a few years ago. I love that little thing, and if there are ads, I don't see or notice them. It's much nicer and more responsive than the actual Chromecast TV it replaced.

Yet. You don't see ads, yet.

But, what you are doing, is selling your viewing history to marketers, albeit indirectly. For that $20 box, you are giving away everything you watch, when you watch, and very likely anything that goes through that box.

That said, you might be 100% ok w/that for the price and that's ok. But, you should go in eyes open about what these lower-cost pieces of hardware are doing to 'permit' you to pay less than they cost from competitors who may or may not be doing the same thing.

I wouldn't say I'm 100% OK with it, more just accepted it. I don't think there's any real way around it with a streaming lifestyle. The streaming device wants data, the services want data. Even my TV I believe asked if it can view what's on the screen.

Even if I had a dumb TV, and a secure trustworthy streaming box, the services themselves(Netflix et al) are collecting the same data, no?

>Even if I had a dumb TV, and a secure trustworthy streaming box, the services themselves(Netflix et al) are collecting the same data, no?

Collecting, yes, but not selling. ONN explicitly says they do so in their privacy policy.

https://onntvsupport.com/privacy-policy

>We may disclose “blinded” aggregated data and user statistics to prospective partners and other third parties. Blinded data is data that does not identify an individual person.

It's a pretty blurry line between sharing and selling, and if it's not, these companies should really make their privacy policies more clear.

Netflix says - https://help.netflix.com/legal/privacy

We may share information collected from or about you with Advertisers and/or Ad Measurement Companies to select advertisements, and measure and improve advertising effectiveness. As a reminder, please see the Information from Other Sources section above if you have questions regarding the role of Advertisers or Ad Measurement Companies.

Hulu says - https://press.hulu.com/privacy-policy

We may share information collected from or about you with third parties as explained further below, including business partners, social networking services, service providers, advertisers, and other companies that are not affiliated with Hulu.

That's until they default to using the cell network when it becomes cheap enough

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.

Right. I use the TV app to manage everything I’m watching. There are ads for Apple content (and extras like the football pass) but it’s rather innocuous.

I’m not getting ads from the lowest rung trash TV someone is pushing, random consumer electronics, things I’ve googled, etc.

As far as I can tell it’s basically the best experience on a modern smart TV without going full HTPC custom.

(LG was pretty good they’re getting worse with promoting things to you, it seems)

One of my favorite parts of AppleTV is that it has those beautiful screensavers.

I would pay for more aerials. I don’t understand why they are limited to so few, and if I could eliminate N.Y.C./London/Hong Kong/SF/other major cities, and get some lesser seen areas, that would be awesome.

It’s quite difficult to get permission to fly a drone over an active LAX (to say nothing of Times Square or London).

The fact that they got to do this (and show it off via screensaver) is one of my favorite “we have unlimited money and power” Apple flexes.

The amount of time, money, and planning to produce these is staggering. They’re slow motion, probably shot in 8K, and are drone shots with expensive cinema lenses. There is probably a team of 1-3 people dedicated simply to the paperwork and approvals and flight planning, not counting cinematography/DP and postproduction.

I would love a reddit-style Q&A with Apple’s internal filmmaking team.

They’re not aerial, but they’re beautiful paid apps: search “magic window” on the ATV app store. They have a few timelapse video apps that I love to leave playing on my ATVs.

Thanks for the suggestion!

They add a few every big release. I agree I’d love more.

I have this screensaver on my Fire TV! It’s kind of a super bitch to set up because there’s no UI for it, but if you can use adb, it’s a one-liner to switch screensavers. I think it guides you on how to enable it, or look up their github

Aerial Views https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4PPSNT6

When we switched to the 4 from the 3, the 3 used to have a "photos of the day" screensaver, filled with an ever changing, curated selection of photos.

For whatever reason, they dropped that in the 4. All of the screensavers (as far as I can tell) are static now, which is kind of a shame.

There is a setting to choose what the home button does. My Home Screen looks just like a grid of icons. No ads or anything. The Apple TV app is not the same as the Home Screen.

No, the home screen displays ads in the hero unit for the currently selected app. By default the first app on the home screen is an Apple one, so going to the home screen displays ads on the home screen from the selected Apple app.

You can change the apps in the first row to prevent this, but by default the behavior is the same: home screen ads.

Those “ads” are provided by the app. Hulu showed me Hulu stuff, HBO shows HBO, etc. just like when you open that app.

I think there may be an option to turn that off too, I don’t remember.

Honestly I’m never on that screen for more than a few seconds. I don’t find that problematic at all.

Ads, or suggestions for content you could watch on the device you just bought, one of the main features of which is allowing you to subscribe to content providers, rent content, and ‘buy’ content.

Calling this ‘ads’ is disingenuous.

They do? I have not seen that on any of mine. We don’t spend much time on the Home Screen though.

owned an apple tv for many years (many models) and i've never seen this

Not to mention, they just launder their selling of your data through Google.

If only defaults could be changed :p

> 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.

Some product categories are nearly monopolies too:

- Garage Door Openers. Chamberlain (also Liftmaster). They have like 80% of the market. Its them or Genie. Almost everyone else got out of the market. Decent products with OK prices. Competition would bring prices down some but not by a huge amount. However they are desperate to generate MRR and so despite originally having openers with WiFi and local APIs they've locked everything down to MyQ so they can force everything through the cloud and charge both you and 3rd party integrators money.

- Sink Food Disposals - Insinkerator (part of Emerson) has almost the entire US market. Three product lines for the low, middle, upmarket segments.

- Luxor. Owns basically all retail eyeglass sales in the US. Charges literal 10x-100x markups on simple plastic frames. Also the easiest slam-dunk for anti-trust action even under the super high bar used by the government today... but no one seems to care.

For everything else we have a missing middle situation. You can't buy a "decent" TV, microwave, toaster, etc. There's only bottom-feeder dreck or high-end. Everyone else disappeared or doesn't want to serve that market.

A lot of the products are objectively worse than they were 20+ years ago. We have a restored Sunbeam Radiant toaster... besides automatically lowering and raising the toasted items it also makes toast about 2x as fast as anything you can buy at Target/Walmart today regardless of price.

Kitchen appliances are similar. Your standard GE/Whirlpool/etc ovens, fridges, washers, and so on are uber cheap, not as repairable as they used to be, and are intended to be used for about 10 years then thrown away. To get a well engineered appliance that has proper service manuals and are designed to last you have to make a huge jump to something like Thermador, SpeedQueen, etc.

TVs? The only way to get one not jammed with ads and tracking garbage is via "commercial signage" which is what I ended up doing. I bought a Sony Bravia "commercial signage" display. It runs Android but you can reject Google's license agreement and the TV works as a display anyway. It also has a documented API I can use to control it. Oh and it has a higher brightness rating than equivalent consumer TVs and is rated to be on 24/7. The extra money was worth it to me.

> The only way to get one not jammed with ads and tracking garbage is via "commercial signage" which is what I ended up doing.

I've had great luck with Sceptre's offerings.

https://www.sceptre.com/

"But companies will emerge to compete!"

Maybe someday, we can hope.

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.

My wife and I bought a Fire TV for a particular use case:

- The hot tub room in the winter

- The outdoor patio in the summer

It was so cheap, we don't mind the ads on the home screen. If it dies from the moisture, we'll just buy another one. The apps are the key anyways, as I use a few totally ad-free apps to stream stuff:

- JellyFin

- VLC

- HDHomeRun (for my antenna on the roof)

PlutoTV is not ad-free, but has so much amazing shit, I don't mind it much.

Meanwhile, the big LG OLED we bought, I have been on a crusade to neuter all the ads without causing issues with downloading apps/updates/streaming. The RootMyTV exploit no longer works:

https://github.com/RootMyTV/RootMyTV.github.io

I have found blocking the IP of the local Akamai peer works for blocking some ads and the OS update check, but at the cost of other things which also use the CDN. It seems to use internal DNS, which complicates things.

> It seems to use internal DNS, which complicates things.

I have the same TVs I resolved this with my router utilizing a firewall rule that redirects all udp port 53 traffic back to my pihole.

See - that would work if our TV was sending out DNS requests. It doesn't though!

Like, it seems like it has its own truly internal DNS resolver, which gets updated I presume via OS updates.

Interesting, I wonder if newer OS updates are now using DoH. It's sad that I have to block upgrades for my TVs firmware for what could resolve potential security issues simply to have control over how my TV behaves on my network. This just re-enforces that I should continue to not let my TV upgrade it's firmware and continue to not let it access anything on the internet directly.

What security problems are you worried about? I never cared for security, there's no money they can get or data, and if there's someone who wants to hack my network with it, good luck lol itll be easier to phish anyway.

It could be doing dns over https (DoH).

yeah probably doing this, or using a secure vpn/tunnel or both.

I don't recall seeing HTTP traffic in the trace during TV startup and update check, so it's got to be a tunnel or internal.

I'd read reports of some smart TV's having internal resolvers, hence my guess at that.

I'll have to take another look though. If there's a DoH host I could block, that'd be nice.

Yup I tried this too. Not working. Must be using DoH. Or some proprietary resolver.

There are still solutions out there:

https://gist.github.com/throwaway96/e811b0f7cc2a705a5a476a8d...

I also have a modern LG. I have rooted it, but it lives on its own VLAN on a default-outbound-blocked firewall config. I log all its requests, it's always trying to access something.

I give it access to a local DNS and NTP server (with restricted responses) and Jellyfin. I've also experimented with a squid proxy to allow specific web traffic that worked well (need to get around to setting up a CA and installing it on the TV). But for me it's just a Jellyfin streaminh screen.

recently realized you cant even start vlc if the fire cant connect to the internet. Bummer if your link is down

That's ridiculously stupid yes. Came across this too when my fibre was down.

You guys are just seeing a message from the home screen but you can bypass it by holding down HOME and pressing right to go to the app quick launcher. The home screen doesn’t work without internet but anything else that doesn’t need it will work

Thanks I'll try that next time!

Does it run Android? If so, you can try replacing the launcher with a user-friendly one.

It's really quite easy (for the average HN reader) to do this too, no cables required. I used FLauncher and followed this guide. https://gitlab.com/flauncher/flauncher#method-2-disable-the-...

Have you found a way to block ads while preserving the voice recognition feature? I have a C1 and a C2 on which I have successfully blocked all ads, but I can no longer use voice recognition for things like searching. It's a fair trade, but I wish I could have both.

I love how you think that TV can be throw away when used <3

You're like a Environmental Hero to me.

You'll notice I did not mention what we do with it when done with it.

Point of fact, we use the (many, free) electronics recycling programs available to us in our area.

Thanks for making dumb and uncharitable assumptions.

Less than 1/5th of e-waste is actually recycled, and most of it ends up in places with little or no environmental regulation or health and safety protections for workers.

And that's the stuff that makes it into the e-waste stream. Most of it just gets tossed in the garbage with everything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVnu0doouJI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axYKPbr9_MA

Realistically what would you recycle them into? Art pieces and using old components for your legacy or simple electronics for reuse and then what? Besides maybe melting it for the trace amounts of metal, I don't see any use for recycled electronics.

Saw where ewaste goes in Ontario at least – a 20 ft deep hole in the ground at the dump

Recycling the TV is better than not doing it, but not wasting it is even better for the environment.

You'll be happy to know we're not wasting it. We use that TV frequently.

I understand, but when you describe your TV as a cheap consumable not worth being careful with, be prepared to trigger some emotional reactions with people who are concerned about the environment.

You're being overly confrontational over a very minor issue. There are much more effective ways to advocate for the environment.

It is, because that's what it is. It's not a luxury item, it's like the dull butter knife you use first.

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 your local network. The quality of third-party apps is so good that I just ignore the FireTV experience as a whole and skip straight to the apps.

Hopefully someone makes/has made a launcher app that bypasses Amazon's stuff. The underlying hardware is perfect for my needs; the first-party software is the crutch.

Edit: prayers answered? https://gitlab.com/flauncher/flauncher

> 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

Yeah, tbh, the fact that they allow side loading makes up for this, IMO. I still wouldn't necessarily buy one. I've found that I like the Google TV ecosystem a little better.

But being able to sideloaded whenever needed makes it much better to me than some of the "less intrusive" options.

Which YouTube client do you use if I may ask?

This is the one I'd prefer, if hypothetically I did such a thing :) https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube

And on other devices, Prime Video is getting incrementally worse, in recent months and weeks.

I tried Prime Video with-ads, and it was not only unpleasant sucking of my attention and interruption of the show, but creepy with the targeting/mis-targeting. When the whole purpose is to relax and wind down for the day.

Once I've run out of ads-free good content on Prime Video, I'm going to have to go through my GnuCash, to see whether the 5% rewards I get with my Amazon credit card is worth the Prime membership fee, compared to my normal 2% cash rewards Fidelity card.

Hopefully, Netflix, Max, etc., will have ads-free accounts at reasonable prices.

Prime Video is by far the worst app on AppleTV. The are so cheap they don't even use 4k resolution icons and thumbnails. It shows how much they care about their customers.

I bought a dumb TV from Walmart a few months ago (65" 4K). The brand is Sceptre.

Picture quality is pretty much the same as any other 4K TV that you will get for <$500. Audio quality is horrendous and that is not an exaggeration. This appears to be due to the speakers more than anything else. I got a dumb soundbar from Best Buy for about $150 and that solved the problem (as much as a $150 soundbar can).

I am not the kind of person that is willing to spend $1000+ on a TV and I don't expect to get the same audio/video quality as that kind of TV will offer. But at my all-in price of about $500, it is outstanding package. We've got an AppleTV, a Wii-U, and a DVD player hooked up to it, as well as an OTA antenna. Our total usage is probably around 5 hours a week, and I can't complain at all. No menu lag, no long boot up, no advertising, etc. Highly recommended.

Even on really high end televisions the built in sound is usually pretty terrible. A sound bar is table stakes these days for sure.

You can start most Google TVs in "dumb" mode, can't you? I know Sony definitely does have that option available when you first turn them on.

https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en

  - Use your device without a Google Account
  - Use your device without an internet connection

Our previous TV used the Roku OS and also had the option to use the device without an account or internet connection.

What we found was that it still dedicated a lot of space to features that required the non-existent internet and on more than one occasion it started suggesting that we should connect to the internet. I am pretty sure that if your kids accidentally click on some internet-required thing, it will take that as a signal that perhaps you've changed your mind and want to start using it as a smart TV. I find that annoying. Also, menu navigation was agonizingly slow :)

We have a tcl Roku tv, but it’s nothing but 3 inputs we set up and some stuff below I’ve never read, presumably something Roku related. Never connected it to the internet, just to consoles or Apple TV. it’s been great. Low input lag it seems too

I have written about this before, particularly as it pertains to Vizio.

My conclusion is simple: Government intervention is now required.

I hate to take that path. I just don't see anything at all limiting what TV manufacturers are doing. They are completely out of control.

The way I put it is that you buy a TV and they deliver a data-gathering, privacy-abusing digital advertising device into your family room, bedroom, etc.

The level of surveillance and abuse on consumers is truly unbelievable. And nobody is even talking about putting a stop to it. HN often focuses on solutions to such problems that only techies would generally be able to or consider implementing. The vast majority of consumers are unsuspecting victims. They don't really understand that the home page is a bunch cost-per-click ads and that every single action they take is being logged and sold. Most people just don't know.

And this is why legislation is required, not a techie solution or work-around. This needs to stop.

So...I did something about it. I wrote to my congressional representative, explaining the problem and asking for action. The response, a few weeks later, was a form letter thanking me for contacting the office. So much for taxation with representation.

Dumb TVs are still a thing

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1629173-REG/nec_e658_...

Sceptre was the go-to brand for dumb TVs for a while. I bought a 60" 4K from them for like $500 4-5 years ago.

For anyone looking for a dumb TV, Sceptre does not appear to sell TVs on Amazon anymore, but they do exist as a company, and they still sell TVs (just search for their brand name and you'll find their website). I don't know the backstory.

> powered by Samsung's Tizen OS for business

Not exactly (or at least bad example.)

The "OS" on the commercial TVs is more or less for digital signage purposes only. Samsung is kind of the defacto in the market, but I've worked with some new Panasonics that are just as nice.

As far as the OS: It doesn't have an 'app store' and essentially you can program it to check in to an RSS feed / FTP / etc.. to grab new content, schedule content, or use a USB to load up a scheduler (Think like restaurant menu that changes from breakfast to lunch at 10:30am).

Other nice features may include ability to daisy chain to make a video wall, fallback/failover if HDMI1 goes off, RS-232 control or command of other systems. Some models also are built for 24/7 duty cycle, though, if you go to a local sports-bar or the like they will buy consumer TVs that will look blotchy within a year or two because they aren't built to be on 20 hours a day.

I missed that, updated with a different brand.

It's a shame it's so expensive for an LCD tv without 10bit HDR. Are there dumb OLED TVs?

Not in Australia they're not.

There's also monitors... Who wants to watch TV anyways when you can download any content ad-free (I know that you can do the same on a TV though)

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.

> tbh you’re being a lil over dramatic they aren’t ads they are showing a subset of available content.

Including content you didn't ask for in apps you don't use? What's your definition of an ad?

Re: apps I don’t use - I uninstall those :)

I will also add that in my experience it is typically recommending shows you are in progress with, or next in a queue, or on some list you have curated before recommending anything else. So quite handy at times.

My Sony, which comes with Google TV, is no worse than Apple TV in its default configuration, and I've read about other people installing alternate home pages with no ads.

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

Google TV's can be run in "basic tv" mode if that is your thing.

Google has started to do the same thing making my nvidia shield a paperweight to me.

Highly recommend installing FLauncher[1] as an alternative to Google's ad-filled TV home screen. Just a nice simple icon grid.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.efesser.fla...

I did this and am very happy with it. Android TV doesn't make it easy though.

The only thing remaining is to disable certain buttons on my remote, especially the huge google assistant one. It's easy to hit accidentally, and then suddenly the content gets obscured by google begging me to set up an account and configure the voice assistant. Haven't found a great solution for that yet.

I have a fairly expensive Google TV and I have to navigate past rows of promoted content to get to the streaming apps I actually installed and want to use.

If you dig down into the account settings there is an "apps only" mode that brings back the grid.

I did try to use that, but it removed some other fairly useful functionality that I can't remember now. They clearly don't want people to use that feature.

I'm dreading the day my LG TV decides it doesn't want to allow me to disable ads.

Roku too, but at least they're off to the side of the UI and easy to ignore.

Chromecast as well. Everything shall be enshittified.

Chromecast has ads now? I just bought one because it was cheaper to buy a new chromecast 4k plus ethernet adapter, than replace my apple tv remote

Chromecast with Google TV has half of the screenspace for streaming service ads. In some locations they have other ads too. This can't be removed even with the "Apps only" mode.

I was kind of forced to get a Chromecast, because they actively block independent receiver implementations, and the prevalent Cast button in Android apps is used by other inhabitants.

This should obviously be illegal, and probably is, but megacorps are above the law.

https://www.androidpolice.com/google-tv-ads/

I never see ads on chromecast unless I'm using an application that has ads, e.g. youtube without premium

This is with the newer chromecasts with Google TV.

The Kindle Fire tablet is an upseller's paradise.

The OS walls the user into an experience was built on constantly FOMOing the user over today's new Amazon content.

Given that it was supposed to help my kids study for school during covid, that was a hard pass. I won't buy Amazon OS goods again, but if other people are lured by the low prices and then just accept what Amazon offers then I can only assume it's done wonders to their bottom line.

My brother was given one as a freebie and has another tablet, so I took it off his hands in the naive expectation I could root it and run lineage or such.

A humbling experience.

Roku has done the same thing with their appliance. If anyone from Roku is listening, I would pay a significant premium to never again see an ad.

And advertisers will pay more than whatever that premium is to target you who have the disposable income to pay for ad-free experiences.

And if there is no way to pay for a truly ad-free experience, then I'll just make an ad-free experience myself by not paying anything and pirating everything.

Piracy is nearly always a service problem. I'm happy to pay for content, but will not pay for content twice and I will not watch ads. If those options are not available, then I'll just take what I want and the service provder will get zero dollars and zero ad viewership rather than some dollars and zero ad viewership.

i once bought a 1st or second gen Kindle on sale ($20 off). It would put a static add on the home page when turned off. To get rid of thne ad, I had to pay $20.

Can you root or otherwise put an alternative ROM on these things? They are basically just running android, right?

Yes and no. People have figured out how to unlock the boot loader of some Fire TV devices, but it can sometimes involve opening up the device and making physical modifications (like shorting something on the motherboard) or having an older version of the Fire TV OS installed (it depends on the device).

So yes, you can put an alternative ROM on some of these things, but I think the practicality of it isn't really there. I would just say "no", but someone will link to an XDA post showing how you can (at least on some Fire TV devices) through a really complicated setup that even a lot of people on HN wouldn't get though.

If you actually want a custom rom, it's better to get something like an Nvidia Shield where you can just unlock the boot loader. The problem with the Nvidia Shield is that it isn't cheap like the Fire TV devices. It's priced more expensive than an Apple TV with less capable hardware ($130 gets you an Apple TV 4K with A15 processor getting 2,100 single-core and 5,100 multi-core, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage; $150 gets you a Tegra X1+ with 300 single-core, 800 multi-core, 2GB of RAM, and 8GB storage).

When a company's business model (like the Fire TV) is selling you cheap hardware and then pumping you full of ads, they often don't make it easy to avoid that.

I'm curious if there's a practical way to replace the offending electronics.

I.e., retain the device's panel, panel driver, chasis, speakers/amplifier, IR receiver, and perhaps power supply.

But replace the computing hardware with something more open?

I guess I have no idea how much custom firmware is needed to really get the most out of such devices. Especially for e.g. getting good color, and avoiding burn-in, on the display.

They need to make money of it somehow. The problem with smart home products that Amazon is learning now finally is that their loads of products in the home and you can’t replace all of them. Lots of them are bad ideas to turn into products. Throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve it.

> "A non-Amazon TV displaying a fire."

The caption to the hero image is particularly hilarious.

Well don't worry. You buy a premium "lifestyle tv" like a Samsung Frame, and the moment you connect it to the internet, it too slams every user interface panel full of advertising. This amazon is shit egregious, but par for the course. They're hardly the only ones. TVs are enshittified pretty badly.

Thankfully my Samsung forgot those ads after wiping it to factory defaults. So now it is only connected to the apple tv, and not the rest of the internet. No network at all, never, seems to be the only winning move right now.

I think this is the real value prop of the Apple TV now for many people, particular non technical types or those who just don't want to monkey with networking etc. Usable interface and isolates your TV from the network.

I met someone doing something similar with a PS5 but that seemed awkward.

I just bought a Bravia A95L and even though it's gorgeous, I see more advertising then back when I just had cable -- 20 years ago. I wasn't planning to offload everything to an HTPC when I bought this, but that's certainly my next move.

And I don't know why Google TV has it in for PLEX but it buries it all the way at the end of my apps list so that I have to press like 20 buttons just to use it.

Why connect any tv to internet?

Many TVs now have dark patterns during setup that suggest initial configuration is impossible without network access. I recently set up a TV that required I scroll to the very bottom of the list of visible Wi-Fi networks to skip the network setup.

That's pretty shady indeed. But I guess that comes from how the majority of consumers use those tvs, not discerning the screen itself from software that provides content access.

To access content.

Why can't you access it from any of the tv boxes (ie Apple TV or any other) and just use the TV itself as one big screen, a bunch of pixels and nothing else?

It’s built into the TV. Why buy an extra box that also shows ads?

Yes, exactly. Most people (perhaps not representative of the audience here) do not want extra boxes, wires, steps, or setup. They like that it's all built into the TV. Ads are just a fact of life to them, they don't really even register as a concern.

I've heard so many of these stories about Samsung that they are automatically rejected whenever I am buying consumer goods.

Simple fix. Any platform that sells targeted ads has to provide an option to completely disable ads for the amount that platform makes in ad revenue from an average customer.

But can you use the TV as a dumb monitor and just supply HDMI input from some other device? I.e. the input stays selected across powerdowns, and no GUI/ads come up?

Other "Fire" devices are a great deal. I have 2021-ish Fire HD8 and HD10 tablets, that merely needed a de-amazonification script from xda-developers to turn into "almost completely normal" vanilla Android tablets, Play Store and all, and have been very satisfactory as such.

> But can you use the TV as a dumb monitor and just supply HDMI input from some other device

Most "other devices" are also filled with ads

There are some TVs with FireOS built in, but this article is mainly talking about the FireTV sticks and such. That's your primary content device, you cannot bypass the ads no matter your TV.

On my five year old TCL Roku TV the other day I decided to plug back in an over the air antenna. I clicked on the live tv shortcut and no channel scan or grid schedule showed up, just row after row of links to free streaming "broadcasters". I had to go to system settings and check a box not to show those and finally I could select an over the air channel. A dark pattern indeed.

I may be in the minority here but I bought an LG TV in 2020 and the built in webOS interface and streaming apps have been great. I think there might be some ads but I'm honestly not 100% sure as they are very unintrusive. We had a Roku from our previous set up I had planned to use after hearing terrible things about the typical smart TV software, but have since gotten rid of it.

It might be a subjective preference thing.

For me, smart TVs have a lot of features that make me angry: surveillance capitalism, manufacturers acting like the own a device I bought, subjecting me to ads, etc.

Even if I'm arguably wrong about those views, subjectively the infringements make me experience unpleasant emotions, which detracts from the product's value for me.

Not sure why to expect TV-over-Internet be any different than TV-over-cable: 1 minute of ads for every 3 minutes of content. Sure, for some years the industry held back the ads in a capital fueled chase for market share. Yet at some point capital requires returns, and so the ads spigot will eventually be turned wide open.

What is it with this ad madness creeping into products we paid for everywhere? I own the product, i paid for it, now go away. If amazon sold it underpriced that’s their problem, not mine. This practice should be made illegal.

Anyway if you have a playstation laying around plug your tv into that and use that for online content.

What am I missing here?

I mean, why not just not plug an ad box into the internet? Either use cable or a PC and voila, no ads.

Or are they somehow tying basic functions like displaying images sent to the port with ads?

You can still do that. Many do. But the next generation of TVs probably won't even deign to turn on without you giving them Internet access.

Lol yeah right

Ahh. ok..

Thanks!

It's weird that this is news in the US. Here in Spain they've done that for 2 years now. Chocolates, perfumes and other stuff are advertised on the fire TV home screen: (

On ars, whose affiliate linked articles flood its own pages post-nast.

Check their most recent “recommended” article filled with these devices

Wonder if you can run Linux on these things. Running software you control is the best form of ad-block.

Yeah so annoying. And very hard to block.

With DNS over HTTPS (DOH) gaining traction, it will eventually become impossible to block.

In a move that surprised approximately no one.

Honestly, that's what you get for not buying a cheap pc that can be hooked to any screen. It's easier, cheaper, and you don't have to deal with "apps".

I am continuously amazed HTPCs are losing ground to commercial setups that are objectively worse by any conceivable metric. No, dealing with "apps" is not simpler.

I've looked into those when I was setting up my living room and, while PCs have their strengths, they lack things like CEC support, proper support for a remote (which you can work around by using Kodi), apps like Netflix are hardly supported and getting them to stream 4K, HDR or even just to use Dolby is an exercise in futility. Not to mention that those setups tend to be pretty unstable.

A technical user can definitely patch something together, but it will be a far less stable or streamlined experience and if you try to have your TV used by your non-technical family, good luck.

It’s tough to get anything decent that will play 4kHDR with frame rate switching etc and included remote control (or work with existing TV remote control) for less than a fire stick. It’s mainly why they are popular and relevant

Seriously! I can't reproduce the general complaint with Kodi on Linux. The end game was always going to be enshittification with these surveillance ecosystems offering throwaway devices. Yet people still keep telling themselves excuses to take the Faustian bargain - that figuring out something non-corporate is too hard, that this other brand will be different, that they can avoid the worst of it with various workarounds etc. Meanwhile once you set them up, the libre options just carry on working as society used to expect from appliances.

Alright, fine, I'm getting an Apple TV

waiting for the them to try this with roku. I have an old laptop ready to swap out and use my TV as just an 80" monitor

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