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People Regret Buying Amazon Smart Displays After Being Bombarded With Ads
"I'm about to just toss the whole thing..." [arstechnica.com]:
Amazon Echo Show owners are reporting an uptick in advertisements on their smart displays.
The company's Echo Show smart displays have previously shown [amazonforum.com] ads through the company's Shopping Lists feature, as well as advertising for Alexa skills [arstechnica.com]. Additionally, Echo Shows may play audio ads when users listen to Amazon Music on Alexa.
However, reports on Reddit (examples here [reddit.com], here [reddit.com], and here [reddit.com]) and from The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who owns more than one Echo Show, suggest that Amazon has increased the amount of ads [reddit.com] it shows on its smart displays' home screens. The Echo Show's apparent increase in ads is pushing people to stop [reddit.com] using [reddit.com] or even return [reddit.com] their Echo Shows.
The smart displays have also started showing ads for Alexa+ [arstechnica.com], the new generative AI version of Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. Ads for the subscription-based Alexa+ are reportedly taking over Echo Show screens, even though the service is still in Early Access.
"This is getting ridiculous and I'm about to just toss the whole thing and move back to Google," one Redditor said [reddit.com] of the "full-volume" ads for Alexa+ on their Echo Show.
[...] Amazon's Devices business famously doesn't make money, so it's not too surprising to see the company's smart displays resort to ads, something Amazon is making money on.
Expanding on its ads program [amazon.com] for Alexa devices, which launched in 2023, Amazon ramped up efforts to sell customers' Echo Show screen space to advertisers in July when it launched a program [amazon.com] for showing home screen ads on devices using Alexa+. Amazon recently said it may also put ads into Alexa+ conversations [arstechnica.com].
[...] After Amazon's devices launch last month, we noted that Alexa's survival hinges on users' tolerance for pricier Amazon devices [arstechnica.com]. It seems people's tolerance for ads will also play a role.
