Smart display will soon default to showing ads after three hours:
In September of 2023, Amazon announced the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition. It looked just like the regular Echo Show 8 smart display/speaker but cost $10 more. Why? Because of its ability to show photos on the home screen for as long as you want—if you signed up for a $2 monthly subscription to Amazon's PhotosPlus. Now, about a year after releasing the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition, Amazon is announcing that it's discontinuing PhotosPlus. That means Echo Show 8 Photos Edition users will be forced to see ads instead of their beloved pics.
As per The Verge yesterday, Amazon started sending PhotosPlus subscribers emails saying that it will automatically cancel all PhotosPlus subscriptions on September 12 and will stop supporting PhotosPlus as of September 23. PhotosPlus, per Amazon's message, "makes photos the primary home screen content you see on your Echo Show 8 and includes 25 GB of storage with Amazon Photos," Amazon's online photo storage offering. Users can continue using the 25GB of Amazon Photos storage after September.
However, users will no longer be able to make photos the indefinite home screen on the Alexa gadget. After September, their devices will no longer have the "photo-forward mode" that Amazon advertised for the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition. The photo-forward mode, per Amazon, let people make "selected personal photos the primary rotating content on the ambient screen" (photos rotated every 30 seconds). Now, Echo Show 8 Photo Editions will work like a regular Echo Show 8 and default to showing ads and promotions after three hours.
[...] But now people who bought into the Photos Edition could feel like the victims of a bait-and-switch. After paying $10 extra to get a device capable of displaying photos indefinitely instead of ads, they'll be forced into the same user experience as the cheaper Echo Show 8.
[...] Amazon may make more money selling ads than it has selling PhotosPlus subscriptions and relevant hardware. It was always somewhat peculiar that PhotosPlus only applied to one Amazon device. Amazon might have been considering extending PhotosPlus to other devices but didn't get enough interest or money from the venture. Getting people to pay monthly for a feature that some would argue the gadget should already support out of the box seems difficult.
[...] But it's hard to overlook Amazon discontinuing a product after about only six months and then bricking the device's exclusive feature only a year after release. The short-lived Echo Show 8 Photos Edition and PhotosPlus service are joining Amazon's graveyard of gadgets, which include the discontinued Astro business robot, Just Walk Out, Amazon Glow, Fire Phone, Dash buttons, and the Amazon Smart Oven.
Amazon's quick discontinuation of the smart display and PhotosPlus is emblematic of its struggles to find a lucrative purpose and significant revenue source for Alexa-powered devices. Reports have claimed that Alexa went without a profit timeline for years and has cost Amazon tens of billions of dollars.
Amazon is banking on the upcoming generative AI version of Alexa being so good that people will pay a subscription fee to use it. But with tough competition, generative AI implementations varying in accuracy and relevance, and some consumers already turned off by consumer gadgets' AI marketing hype, it'll be hard for Amazon to turn things around. A premium-priced Alexa device losing its main feature after a year doesn't instill confidence in future Amazon products either.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday August 27 2024, @03:39AM
https://youtu.be/RSi6g5-xUaY [youtu.be]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday August 27 2024, @10:43AM (3 children)
A few years ago when everyone was rolling out cheap tablets, I tried a few. Tried a $35 WalMart tablet, and 2 $50 Amazon Fire tablets. The battery in the WalMart device was short lived, and a replacement battery cost more than a new device. It got dumped into a closet somewhere. The Fire tablets still work, but simply aren't used. Everyone would rather use a full laptop with more computing power, a real keyboard, and fully capable software that lacks hidden friction. As for my smartphone, something has bogged it down. It now takes several seconds to respond to user input, and half the time throws up the "x isn't responding, wait or close?" question. ("Wait or close" is warmed over "abort, retry, fail"!) I have kept my usage of the phone quite light, have installed little to no software on it, yet it has still become crappily slow. It came with an ad supported game that I only play in airplane mode because the ads are super annoyingly time, screen space, and bandwidth consuming.
Going through a "store" to add software is a total pain. Get nagged for a method of payment even for free software. Then the Store shoves a bunch of ads at the user. And propaganda, don't forget that part. Try to sell people on the idea that The Store is a safer way to get software. Try to scare and pressure the users into cooperating by repeatedly invoking the Fear of Loss of the somewhat mysterious and vague supposed benefits to be had for your cooperation. Your device won't be fully functional if you don't sign up!!! They also absolutely do gather data about you.
I nevertheless tried to buy something through a Store, just once, and couldn't get it to work because I insisted on using a prepaid credit card to limit my exposure and preserve what little anonymity I still had. The card would not work. Somehow, the peddler of the card can distinguish between in (app) Store and in (bricks and mortar) store purchases, and refuse spending attempts on the former. (Why do they refuse that kind of spending? What do they care?) One workaround is to go to a bricks and mortar store, and use the prepaid credit card to buy a gift card for the particular Store or game with microtransactions that you're trying to waste money on. I distrust Stores, I refuse to use them, and I bury them. They have however coerced me into using them a little bit because that's the only way a growing suite of software can be updated. Even that has its perils, when an "update" results in lessened functionality and/or even more friction.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 27 2024, @11:06AM
I won't even attempt to address tablets, because I'm not a fan of tablets and know almost nothing about them.
The phone though . . . have you tried a factory reset? If the problem is software related, the factory reset is likely to get rid of the problem. If it's a hardware problem, there will be no effect, of course. When I got my new phone, I played with it, installing and uninstalling things, playing with the settings, until the phone started slowing down. Factory reset got rid of all the background malware that I had installed, and I had my nice snappy little phone back. You wouldn't want to do a full restore from Google's cloud afterward, or all the crapola will just be reinstalled. Better to back up what you need to your own computer, and restore from there.
For freeware apps, you might look into Aurora Store. You can run it in anonymous mode, filter out paid and ad-supported apps, and you're left with only free apps that are less likely to spy on you. https://f-droid.org/packages/com.aurora.store/ [f-droid.org] Alternatively, just install F-droid.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 27 2024, @08:06PM (1 child)
Both Apple and Google have gift cards you can purchase with cash at a place like Walmart. That won't save you from the "privacy nightmare" that is modern software.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27 2024, @08:34PM
It's not the money that drives me to piracy.
I simply don't want to tell them who I am, lest I invite those who will endlessly pry into my affairs.