Do the "smart displays" monitor the behavior of people in the room say and do to determine what to pitch to them?
They're already aware of whether someone is near the device. What else are they monitoring?
Advertising will expand to the point where we won’t take it anymore. And ultimately it comes down to power. If we can’t stop it ads will arrive.
On the display on your fridge. (Unless you can stop it) on the display in your car (unless you can stop it)
Where’s the line for you? And have you preserved your power so you’re in a position to stop it?
It's not conspiracy or hypothesis that the only point of these products is ads, it's the straight up business model. When are we going to hold people accountable for being surprised by the obvious actions of these companies? It wastes our time and it's boring to keep responding with, what did you think was going to happen? We've tried not shaming these people, will shame get them to stop buying this stuff and actually creating change in the world? What will work?
> “This is getting ridiculous and I'm about to just toss the whole thing and move back to Google,” one Redditor said of the “full-volume” ads for Alexa+ on their Echo Show.
Any article that quotes this and doesn't point out the crushing stupidity of it has failed. Do it politely, if you must, Scharon Harding. But if I wanted to be exposed to Reddit quality ideas I'd be on Reddit.
I recently bought a Kindle/Fire device pre-owned, to save money. But seeing full-screen shitty consumer products ads on the 'covers of my books', sitting around my home was so depressing, I paid the extra $10-$15, to retroactively turn it into an ad-free device.[1]
Though, even with Special Offers disabled, it still puts oversized icons for marketing promotions, bursting out of the search bar at the top of the home screen. This is one of the reasons I find the home screen a little bit unpleasant to look at, and avoid it as much as possible.
[1] If you want to remove Special Offers from your own Kindle/Fire (I don't know about Echo Show), go to https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/digital-console/alldevices , click on the icon for your device, and scroll down, to find an option to disable Special Offers by paying some amount. IIRC, it said the amount was the difference between the original retail prices of with-ads and ads-free versions of the device. I've also heard some people can get Special Offers removed for free by customer service, but in my case it seemed like a fair deal, so I just paid the modest fee.
These days, the general rule is to avoid buying anything 'smart'. They are all filled with advertisements and data-sharing practices and are designed to target you through their user interface and applications. They bombard you with offers for their other products and deals.
I sometimes wonder whether there’s an eu vs us difference here. At least when it comes to tv, I found the hard way ( a long time ago ) that the amount of ads Americans are exposed to is simply unbearable. This extends to youtube and similar services.
Now, everything is global - so are we looking at European users or American users complaining ? If an American user says it’s an unbearable, then it’s unusable. If a European user complains… it depends ( and these days, it’s at least to me unusable, but I obviously can’t speak for everyone)
Simple enshitification, literally everything is going down that road.
Somewhere a VP with a dashboard is super happy: they will get their $1M bonus and "après moi le déluge".
Even local businesses get snatched by PE firms left and right, prices skyrocket, customers are pissed....
Is the business-consumer relationship valued at exactly $0?
But then what's the point of buying a device like this in the first place? I agree with the sentiment, but I would only buy this device if I wanted to use Amazon's services. If I decided to customize it, I couldn't blame Amazon for refusing the service.
Perhaps there could be a government-mandated requirement to distinguish between "buy" and "rent". If you get a device bundled with a service, then there should be a subscription fee you have to pay for it without the ability to outright "buy" it. That would make it very obvious to people whether they are buying something to own or merely renting it. My take is very simplistic here but I hope I managed to convey the concept.
Amazon sucks. They are one of the greediest companies there is. What they do with online shopping, logistics, AWS is incredible. They are in a different league and could generate more revenue than any company could ever need by just doing those things well. But that’s not enough. They have to stuff ads into everything and find every possible way to piss off customers all in the name of another buck.
I've had two different family members complain that now days when they unlock their Fire Tablet, it launches the Amazon Store app to display the product page of whatever product was being advertised when they unlock the tablet.
Is Amazon charging businesses who use their ad platform a fee based on how many times they display a product page?
This is part of why I refuse to purchase things that further enshittification on principle, even if it means "putting up with" an open-source alternative.
Anecdotally, I think that open-source software/hardware only ever gets better (because if it got worse, someone would fork it, etc...) while proprietary software will eventually succumb to rent-seeking and decline. I've seen many open source projects go from barely usable to matching their proprietary counterparts.
Shoutout to Immich, full-featured self-hosted Google Photos alternative and my new favourite open-source project.
I had buyers regret after getting a Mycroft II device a few years ago. Lots of drama there. I still think it was an inspiring vision but you can't spell hardware without hard.
But then I recently found neon which allows me to repurpose the device. And, it is incredible.
I recall trying to build something for the Google devices and it was an awful experience. Getting root ssh access on my Mycroft device is amazing, and I have tailscale on it to boot.
I’m of the mind to stop using consumer tech entirely. TV’s with ads before ads when you just want to watch a show. Tablets opening store pages on their own. Alexa listening in on every conversation. Smartphones tracking your every movement, app, contact, network, website you visit.
It’s completely fucked.
I got rid of social media a couple years ago and never looked back. I think I might take it even further and just remove all consumer tech from my life. Just a linux box.
I’m afraid to upgrade from my ~6 year old LG OLED with a damaged corner because I pair it with an Apple TV and only see Apple ads occasionally on the Home Screen. I don’t know if a newer tv would give me the same experience.
The most egregious thing for me is that companies aren't disclosing that these devices are used to advertise to you before you purchase them.
Nowhere on the Amazon Echo Show product page is there any mention of advertisements. The product screenshots don't show advertisements nor does the product video.
It absolutely should be illegal for a company to push a software update to an individual's device designed just to enrich themselves - certainly not without informed consent.
I see many comments that express the same level of disgust I have for modern TV's, of nearly every brand, having mutated into intrusive digital signage with integrated behavioral tracking in my home.
The question is: Would you pay $1000 to $3000 more (depending on size, etc.) for a TV with none of that. Zero.
40 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 49.6 ms ] thread> “This is getting ridiculous and I'm about to just toss the whole thing and move back to Google,” one Redditor said of the “full-volume” ads for Alexa+ on their Echo Show.
Any article that quotes this and doesn't point out the crushing stupidity of it has failed. Do it politely, if you must, Scharon Harding. But if I wanted to be exposed to Reddit quality ideas I'd be on Reddit.
Though, even with Special Offers disabled, it still puts oversized icons for marketing promotions, bursting out of the search bar at the top of the home screen. This is one of the reasons I find the home screen a little bit unpleasant to look at, and avoid it as much as possible.
[1] If you want to remove Special Offers from your own Kindle/Fire (I don't know about Echo Show), go to https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/digital-console/alldevices , click on the icon for your device, and scroll down, to find an option to disable Special Offers by paying some amount. IIRC, it said the amount was the difference between the original retail prices of with-ads and ads-free versions of the device. I've also heard some people can get Special Offers removed for free by customer service, but in my case it seemed like a fair deal, so I just paid the modest fee.
Now, everything is global - so are we looking at European users or American users complaining ? If an American user says it’s an unbearable, then it’s unusable. If a European user complains… it depends ( and these days, it’s at least to me unusable, but I obviously can’t speak for everyone)
Even local businesses get snatched by PE firms left and right, prices skyrocket, customers are pissed....
Is the business-consumer relationship valued at exactly $0?
There is no system we can think of to avoid that?
It shouldn't be a crime for me to customize the product I purchased. Or to sell people a kit to do the customization themselves.
Perhaps there could be a government-mandated requirement to distinguish between "buy" and "rent". If you get a device bundled with a service, then there should be a subscription fee you have to pay for it without the ability to outright "buy" it. That would make it very obvious to people whether they are buying something to own or merely renting it. My take is very simplistic here but I hope I managed to convey the concept.
Is Amazon charging businesses who use their ad platform a fee based on how many times they display a product page?
Anecdotally, I think that open-source software/hardware only ever gets better (because if it got worse, someone would fork it, etc...) while proprietary software will eventually succumb to rent-seeking and decline. I've seen many open source projects go from barely usable to matching their proprietary counterparts.
Shoutout to Immich, full-featured self-hosted Google Photos alternative and my new favourite open-source project.
But then I recently found neon which allows me to repurpose the device. And, it is incredible.
I recall trying to build something for the Google devices and it was an awful experience. Getting root ssh access on my Mycroft device is amazing, and I have tailscale on it to boot.
And, no ads, ever.
It’s completely fucked.
I got rid of social media a couple years ago and never looked back. I think I might take it even further and just remove all consumer tech from my life. Just a linux box.
"Nothing is certain but death ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶a̶x̶e̶s̶.̶"̶, taxes, and ads."
Nowhere on the Amazon Echo Show product page is there any mention of advertisements. The product screenshots don't show advertisements nor does the product video.
It absolutely should be illegal for a company to push a software update to an individual's device designed just to enrich themselves - certainly not without informed consent.
The question is: Would you pay $1000 to $3000 more (depending on size, etc.) for a TV with none of that. Zero.
I would.