I run Pi-hole, and ublock.

I went to my pal's house and turn on his TV, ad. He turned on his Xbox, ad. Was looking for a specific game on his Xbox, another fucking ad.

"Too complicated" he says when I suggested setting him up with a raspberry pi.

I bought the thing. I should control want it shows at all times. The reason I can't trust the company to futz with that is why I don't have one.

What you mean you dont watch the superbowl for the commercial advertisements that take up approximately 80% of the time of the 6 hour game?

Ponies are supposed to shit. It’s more like if the pony came strapped with ill-fitting saddlebags that leak toxic chemicals.

Yeah, they totally deserve to be sued and pay a $5 fee as punishment.

That will teach them!

I'm kind of glad that I don't mind flipping switches and pressing buttons. I've never felt the need for a smart home, so this stuff hasn't affected me much personally.

I believe there was just a post the other day arguing that Ring was beginning to collect biometric data on anyone that passed in front of it.

[Edit] It was A Boring Dystopia post from 6 days ago https://lemmy.ml/post/37147235

Not just who you are as a consumer, who you are as a person.

Don’t Kindles have multiple tiers though? Ad-subsidized or pay more for an ad-free model

But they have gotten significantly worse over time. I did buy a Fire Stick knowing i was getting ads, but it was so much better the Apps on my smart tv and cheap that it was well worth it. Now it’s gotten bad enough that I no longer use it but suffer through the TV’s apps

I do plan on trying Apple TV in case it stays useable but at this point I’m not buying consumer tech from three years ago

Similarly with the Fire tablet. I knew I was getting ads when I bought them way back when, but tablets were expensive. Fire tablets were much cheaper and quite usable so the tradeoff was worth it. That long since stopped being true, and this experience is e partly why I don’t have an echo show.

I do want some dory of home dashboard, but echo show had never been under consideration. If the Apple rumors are real I might try that but otherwise I guess I’ll see when I have the motivation to build my own

Edit: rereading the post, this is even on devices where people paid extra to be ad free

Yes it has, every amazon product is massively subsidized price wise with the expectation they make it up via advertisements.

I think the only one that really didn't fall down that train was the alexa, but, well we already know where they are making it up on that one.

Second generation Paperwhite was actually really good, and still works nicely. They were still in the capture the market phase with that, so they had to offer some quality.

The low cost of these devices doesn’t help, and the constant “sales” they have throughout the year.

But it's so cheap.

Yeah and you get what you pay for

Well, you would be surprised, I bet at least 50% didn't see that coming.

It's so predictable

Why the fuck anyone needs a smart fridge is beyond me. Just open the door and write down what you need. The only thing a good refrigerator needs to do is keep shit cold

There is a special kind of person who buys a smart fridge. But even they must realise after a month that standing in front of a frige and looking at a screen isn't really a thing anyone does.

Yeah that was my first thought. Better learn about corporate greed from a "smart display" then a >$1k appliance (but better not to buy them at all).

"That giant electronic advertising billboard really tied the room together."

"And he peed on it."

"Bullshit" still works wonders.

It's not just companies. Amazon started pushing ads to subscribers who pay for ad-free Prime video content. Some idiot here on Lemmy actually insisted it wasn't an ad at all, but a "promotion."

Companies are getting their customers to make infuriating, ridiculous corporate statements for them.

Corpospeak?

Rhetoric?

The key is to tell your audience something they wish would be true.

There's a certain amount of advertising I'll accept. If I go to see an action movie, 1 to 3 previews of other action movies that are coming out in the next few months is okay.

Of course, because they tried to force a Mission: Impossible movie down my throat, I might never go see an action movie made after 2014 ever again.

I made the mistake buying a Kindle Fire in 2015. A few months in, it was literal garbage. Everything lagged. Very few apps would work. Not much variety in the Amazon app store. Learned my lesson about Amazon products.