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Google TV's homescreen video ads now include fast food too
(9to5google.com)
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This is ridiculous. I would understand if this is subsidized devices where you pay less in exchange for having ads. You already bought the device and suddenly it got shittier. Might as well get a free, big brotherly tv with ads from Telly.
It always has been a device that is primary subsidized by ads and selling your behavioral data.
There is a reason why an Nvidia Shield or AppleTV costs a lot more. They’re making more from the price at the register than the ads and data sales.
Yeah but Google started putting these home screen ads on Nvidia shield also.
Not super up to date with that though because the second they did I switched to a custom launcher.
People in this thread said their Nvidia shield has ads too now. I guess costing a lot more doesn't guarantee the device won't be updated in the future to include ads.
As for apple tv, is it usable in a household that's primarily use Android? Can you cast stuff from Android apps to it? Or is it only supports airplay from apple devices?
Nvidia didn't push the ads. Nvidia got their pound. Google is pushing the ads onto the shield.
So, the price of the hardware is not an indication whether the device will have ads or not later down the line? Even if you spent your money on the top of the line models it'll eventually got ads if it's running Google TV OS?
Correct. GoogleTV is completely owned by Google. Nvidia has no say in what google pushes to the platform. If you don't want Ads... stay away from google/android TV.
I own 3 shields (pre-ad-gate purchases). I was a huge advocate for it. It was a great device that did everything I wanted a tv console to do. I would not buy a new one. And will not buy a shield 2 if it has the same OS on it.
The best you can do is stop the upgrades... or use a custom launcher. But the OS itself is going to find a way to get ads because that's what google programmed it to do.
It's actually in Google's best interest to do this anyway. Nvidia likely didn't pay google anything to have the OS on the device. This is google's way of extracting money out of you in this process.
I'm pretty sure OEMs pay Google for including Play Store in their device, and they still decided to show ads. My Chromecast with Google TV shows no ads at the moment, not sure if it's due to using Adguard in my home network or if Google simply hasn't roll out ads in my country yet.
https://www.alphr.com/google/1010053/google-introduces-licensing-costs-for-android-manufacturers/
That started in 2018. The Nvidia Shield is an older product than that contract/requirement. And may not even apply to non EU devices/contracts.
Same for cheap TVs these days btw, their home page ads are why they're able to sell you a decent quality 85" TV for under $2k.
On the Nvidia shield side, they've started adding more and more ads lately, which is completely unexcusable. Thankfully it's not hard to use alternative launchers.