Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

https://www.streamtvinsider.com/video/amazon-modifies-ad-revenue-impressions-share-policy-international-fire-tv-apps

by Mikho • 3 years ago

188 185 3 years ago

wmf2• 3 years ago

Roku does the same. At this point I would be surprised if any box or TV isn't taking 30%.

afavour3• 3 years ago

One of the reasons the state of smart home TV really disappoints me. Logical conclusion is we'll all end up with Netflix HDMI sticks, Hulu sticks etc etc etc. DRM means we're never going to end up with a fully open TV player.

giancarlostoro3• 3 years ago

I'll just opt for the Kodi / Plext TV sticks and call it a day. Or hook it up to a HTPC and call it a day.

gjsman-10005• 3 years ago

The dumb thing though is that DRM... kinda works?

I know that we techies can bypass it fairly easily, regardless of type... but I do understand the argument that 95%+ of people can't bypass DRM even if they tried their hardest, it's just too complicated for them. Which in a sense makes it effective and purposeful?

Ugh.

kneebonian2• 3 years ago

Why can't you just plug a Linux box into your TV and use that?

Like am I taking crazy pills. I got fed up with the madness of all the streaming sticks, and putting in my password with a crappy remote and ended up dropping $300 on an old desktop from a discount computer store. Spent an hour throwing Ubuntu on it, and now bam, works like a charm.

I put the youtube, PBS Kids, and Disney+ (which we later removed) icons on the side so the kids can use it easy.

I can stream Hulu if I had an account, I can watch my Disney+, I can watch youtube, I can watch Netflix if I wanted to. Plus I can play steam games on it, set a fun screensaver. Loads of things.

The best part is I no longer have to try and put in a 12 character password with mixed case, numbers and symbols over a freaking TV remote.

EDIT: Well this blew up more than expected. Many people are pointing out the issues with the quality. I'll be honest I don't care that much about quality, most of the streaming consumption in our house is Wild Kratts, and Bluey anyway.

Beyond that though is that I have to have a slightly worse quality, (meaning orders of magnitude better than the VHS I grew up on) to be able to own my computing device, to be able to have the freedom I want to use it. It's a price I'll happily pay. If they day comes that the streamers decide it's not worth it, then at that day I'll be turning it off and going to the Uncle Ted route of things.

michaelmior2• 3 years ago

AFAIK, Google TV isn't.

Arrath• 3 years ago

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00279895

Maybe there's a difference between Google TV and an Android TV, but my partner's dad can't buy/rent stuff on Prime Video through his tv, he has to use another device and then can watch it on his tv. He finds it very irksome, to say the least.

My understanding is that this came around by Google insisting on the 30% cut of purchases made in the Prime Video app on the tv, and Amazon told them to pound sand. I could of course be wrong, though.

jzb• 3 years ago

I don't love the model, but it's hard to see long term how Roku sustains itself on hardware sales alone. How many new Roku devices does one house need in a 3-5 year period? Investors want recurring revenue streams, and a new Roku device every few years isn't going to do that.

Kind of surprised that Roku hasn't been bought up yet.

southwesterly• 3 years ago

This is going to end well.

Ekaros• 3 years ago

I'm waiting for the day when Microsoft starts asking 30% of revenue on Windows 12...

brianwawok• 3 years ago

They 100% would if they could.

amelius3• 3 years ago

I'm waiting for the day when TSMC starts asking 30% of revenue for using their FabStore. Or ASML, for that matter.

bartwe• 3 years ago

There is a reason they try and push folks to the Store....

tsunamifury• 3 years ago

Nope but 30% of AI assisted output -- they are gonna try for that for sure

blibble• 3 years ago

Microsoft store is already there

soon the move towards mass remote attestation will finally arrive and that'll be the only approved place to install software

amelius3• 3 years ago

Yes, for Amazon. Ka-ching!

cowsup• 3 years ago

Short-term, yes. Long-term, these apps and services will start looking into offering hardware solutions of their own to become competitors, not providers.

nikodunk• 3 years ago

I have 7 HDMI slots on my TV, ready for Peacock Stick, Hulu Disney Plus stick, Netflix Stick, Paramount Plus stick, Max Hub etc etc

Not more than seven though mmmkay?

aionaiodfgnio• 3 years ago

Sounds like you need a KVM.

teaearlgraycold• 3 years ago

Kludge of Various Media?

14u2c• 3 years ago

Why is that? With no need to handle USB a simple HDMI switch will be much more cost effective.

rzzzt• 3 years ago

Introducing the MegaStick: 15 streaming services in a convenient cube!

NicoJuicy• 3 years ago

That's not how it works...

Those services get hidden discounts.

kneebonian2• 3 years ago

Did you know that you could just grab an old computer slap Ubuntu on it, and get all of those services through only 1 HDMI slot?

nehal3m• 3 years ago

If you want an inferior experience due to DRM you could absolutely do that. [1]

Please don't grease the wheels of the attestation hype train.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/netflix/comments/n8ilcz/4kuhd_on_li...

elabajaba• 3 years ago

And then be limited to 720p because you don't have the right DRM because Linux.

vladvasiliu4• 3 years ago

If you're talking about doing the playback on Ubuntu, you lose the high-definition. I guess it may not be important for you, but I expect someone who sunk a fair amount of change on a high-end TV to care.

andrewmackrodt3• 3 years ago

I don't have (all of) those services but they're not like for like comparable for any services using Widevine, e.g. Amazon, Netflix and Disney. A Linux install will give you access to L3 content using the browser (usually limited to 720p but you can get a 1080p stream out of Netflix using a browser extension). I think the poster was having a bit of a joke though.

rtsil• 3 years ago

You can always use a switch to multiply the inputs.

intelVISA2• 3 years ago

You'd probably DoS your router if they're all on concurrently due to all the data exfiltration they're performing.

nerdo• 3 years ago

No joke just the Amazon stick itself would accomplish that. It tries to phone home constantly, every second of every day, idle or not.

petecooper• 3 years ago

data exfiltration

Pi Hole can help with limiting this:

https://pi-hole.net

Here's the 24-hour top blocked domains list for my network (1x Kindle Fire Stick):

https://i.imgur.com/JZsO3WK.png

foobarian• 3 years ago

Not sure if you're joking or not but already content is being filtered based on the client device. In my case of an Xfinity Flex TV box Plex refuses to play self-hosted content, and Amazon's app has restrictions on nested subscriptions.

princevegeta892• 3 years ago

I used to be like this, with a fewer number of devices. Now I eliminated them all, and I have everything under my own Jellyfin server in the cloud.

squigglydonut• 3 years ago

Hey people. Did we forget that everyone has access to the internet? It's not like a physical store!!

stormdennis• 3 years ago

Arrrr me hearty!

hinkley3• 3 years ago

Turns out we would in fact download a car.

gjsman-10005• 3 years ago

Mandatory reminder of the Piracy Warning from The IT Crowd:

https://youtu.be/ALZZx1xmAzg

yomlica8• 3 years ago

Remember when Jesus downloaded all those loaves and fishes and got crucified?

Booktrope• 3 years ago

Well, the article says, Amazon already charges this wherever Amazon Publishing Services is available. The change is to extend this charge to places where Amazon Publishing Services isn't available. Then the article provides some background info about how Amazon Fire works economically. So, basically, not much new here.

Workaccount2• 3 years ago

The trickle down effects of Apple being a $3T corporation that is widely beloved and did it all on the back of a fiercely guarded walled garden.

neaumusic2• 3 years ago

I personally think Apple does things correctly, and they do charge a premium, but they sell good products rather than requiring more of your time and energy (ads)

candiddevmike• 3 years ago

Apple has ads[1][2][3]

1 - https://searchads.apple.com/

2 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...

3 - https://gizmodo.com/apple-tv-plus-more-ads-coming-tv-exec-la...

intelVISA2• 3 years ago

I love Apple, their white walls keep me safe; they even open and read all my letters (bins) for me to double check I'm safe :)

HWR_143• 3 years ago

The difference is I feel Apple's walls protect me as well as their profits. I do not feel the same about Amazon/Microsoft/Meta/Google.

tristan957• 3 years ago

How does Apple keeping you sideloading apps protect you?

fennecfoxy2• 3 years ago

I suppose there's some truth to that as long as you recognise that for Apple, profits come first. This whole new "private & secure" thing on their end is pure marketing/business.

They didn't give two shits about it until they realised that it was a major issue of their competitors, now it's become their core features/marketing. But don't think for one second that the protective wall won't spring a leak or two if it can make Apple a profit.

Apple's dominance also comes from them cornering every possible market they can, they want to do everything themselves and monopolise as much as possible, their recent step was designing their own processors, the debacle with them trying to make their own cellular modems etc. Maybe they'll go for displays next but Samsung et al are so far ahead on that game.

joshl32532• 3 years ago

What does this have to do with Apple's "walled garden"?

They are able to charge 30% of app revenue because they can. They are a for profit company.

Amazon Fire did not do that because nobody uses it. Now that it has some traction, lo and behold, they want their cut as well.

If anything, Roku is the direct competitor (low cost streaming stick) and they take 30% ad revenue. But Apple gets the blame. lol.

mattbrewsbytes• 3 years ago

Back in the days when TiVo was a thing, I built a MythTV box including all the troubleshooting of a capture card, X windows settings, getting a remote to work, etc. to the point where my non-tech spouse could use it like a set top box. It even looked like a set top box. This was when Netflix was DVD by mail.

The last Windows laptop I bought bricked itself in a week, the Amazon stick needed constant reboots, I don't care about side-loading apps/widgets/software on my devices - I want them to be like my refrigerator and just work. AppleTV devices are much better than others. Once you're in the Apple walled garden things are much easier on me as an end user. There are seamless transitions from device to device if I want, sharing between them is a breeze. Sure other platforms are "open" or might have more advanced features, but I don't want to waste my time doing tech support having the BeenThereDoneThat™ patch.

Edit to add: "open" usually just means you have countless versions of "standards" to try and get things to interoperate. I deal enough with that at work to be turned off from dealing with that at home when I just want to chill and consume whatever nonsense I'm into.

turquoisevar2• 3 years ago

Hardly comparable.

One started a platform with an upfront communicated commission rate that, at the time, was literally received with applause because before that the rates were significantly worse for developers and has never raised the rate in its entire history (instead lowered it for certain circumstances).

The other is a bait and switch, luring people onto the platform under one set of rules, only to pull the rug from under them years after the status quo was established and change the rules to impose a commission that didn’t apply to them until now.

One is hard to argue as an anti-trust violation and the other is pretty much a textbook example.

dakial1• 3 years ago

Point #1: This bait-and-switch tactic shouldn't be allowed by consumer regulations (Not in the US, but here in Brazil it would be a no-no) as in the end Amazon is tricking it's use base into paying for the Fire TV as a great deal, when in the end they will pay more for streaming as those costs that Amazon is putting on the streaming services will be paid by them in the end.

#2 Wouldn't this movement be (potentially) a great chance for Plex to better position itself in the legal side of streaming? Because by offering a free hub for streaming (even licensing it for hardware sellers like Dlink and others, like Boxee once did) might generate a good revenue stream for them...until somebody buys the whole team (I miss you Boxee!)

duped3• 3 years ago

It's called the razor-and-blade model, it's not a bait and switch.

RE Plex, that's basically what Android TV does, except it's better than Plex (for streaming services and device manufacturers) and has the same model as FireTV

Timon3• 3 years ago

Can you explain how? The situation here is:

- Customers bought the devices without the 30% rule in effect

- Amazon introduces the 30% rule

- Customers will now be asked higher prices to make up for the lost revenue

The razor-and-blade model is about selling one product cheap to increase sales on a complementary good. It's not about a vendor changing the situation, as is the case here.

Liquix• 3 years ago

Plex Inc. is not a good company. They are eager to collect and sell your data to advertisers. Jellyfin is a great alternative.

Plex may share Collected Information as expressly set forth in this Privacy Policy, including the following limited situations: [...] With third parties to improve and deliver advertising to you on our behalf.

Plex may also use third-party advertising companies to serve ads, which may, directly or indirectly, collect or use information about user visits to websites and mobile app usage over time and across non-affiliated websites and mobile apps to display advertisements more tailored to users’ interests on this browser or device, and those browsers or devices associated with it.

More in the "Data We Collect" section: https://www.plex.tv/about/privacy-legal/

sithadmin• 3 years ago

As lousy as Plex (both the company and the product) have become, there really aren't alternatives with feature-parity available. Jellyfin is starting to get there in terms of basic media center functionality, but still faces stability and platform compatibility issues that have been long-solved by Plex. Jellyfin also lags behind in ecosystem support/integration for those of us operating media servers with heavy amounts of automation and dependencies on workflows executed by 3rd party packages.

notatoad2• 3 years ago

where "my data" means a record of the shows i watch.

i'm okay with that. the shows i watch don't need to be a secret. i want advertisers to know what i watch, so more of that sort of TV gets made. If Plex can make money off this information, and give me a good service in exchange for that, it seems like an arrangement that benefits us both. what's the problem?

paul79865• 3 years ago

Umm no need to pay for many or any streaming service then that consumer problem is solved just watch the free outlets like YouTube.

Hollywood's biggest competitor is content creators on Youtube, Tiktok, etc ... my bet is they will need to compete and many paid offerings will consolidate and become free / less expensive to compete with all the free content creators on YouTube, Tiktok and etc. If you look at where the eyeballs are the majority are on Tiktok. Personally after using Reels, Tiktok and tons more of YouTube i have a hard time watching long form content. I just want to watch stuff here and there in the background while im working or right before bed any other time Im far away from tv screen outside or with friends/family enjoying life.

Further .. i use to watch documentaries on the history channel and or other places ... there's tons of solid and good content creators doing that same thing on youTube.

jfim• 3 years ago

I'm not convinced that Hollywood really competes with TikTok. Going out for a movie date sounds a lot more interesting than "let's go flop on the couch and watch TikTok/YouTube all evening."

nijave• 3 years ago

It might be channel specific on YouTube but on one particular channel I think I've had as many as 3 ad breaks for a 10-15 minute video.

eikenberry• 3 years ago

Youtube isn't free. It is either a paid service or via advertising. Neither of those is free.

lancesells• 3 years ago

free outlets like YouTube

Free and YouTube are not the same. YouTube either has ads or you're paying. Ads are not free. They take your time, which is in limited supply for everyone on the planet. The use of an adblocker does make it free.

I've never used Tiktok so I have no idea if it has ads and what the frequency is.

i have a hard time watching long form content

I don't know if this is good or bad. I'm older and think this loss of attention is very much a net bad to thinking, but maybe the new way of devouring content turns out to be a plus. I always wonder if 15 second videos turn to 10 seconds, and then 5 seconds, and then 1 second over the next 100 years. Is the future just a video from the A Clockwork Orange rehabilitation scene and everyone is happy about it?

This is why billionaires who could pay to have someone wipe their ass invest in longevity startups.

thrashh• 3 years ago

Okay I watch a lot of YouTube it it’s several leagues of quality below a lot of TV shows.

Some documentary YouTube channels also clearly just read Wikipedia and regurgitate random online sources. They don’t have the budget to go to the actual source or do any interviews.

Ofc there are a lot of bad TV shows on streaming services too but a world with access to both is nice.

deely3• 3 years ago

How we can differentiate between bait-and-switch and honest price correction?

RajT88• 3 years ago

PSA: VLC is available for Fire devices and is fantastic.

You can stream right off SMB shares.

nazcan• 3 years ago

Bait and switch for who(m)? The companies offering services on these providers?

Their is a simple fix - get a contract and don't assume current terms will continue without it.

princevegeta892• 3 years ago

I am not sure I understand the Plex example here - their free streaming service that they are pushing so aggressively involves a lot of ads and some ad revenue as well. Eventually since they have to pay FireTV the 30% cut, they might end up raising prices of Plex Pass, or discontinue their "free" streaming service?

bdcravens3• 3 years ago

Low cost computer, free software updates, backend infrastructure, several years of functional life, for $40 in sales (is there any profit there?). Exactly how is it surprising that they need to make some sort of additional revenue via kickback?

HWR_143• 3 years ago

The specs are seem roughly equivalent to a raspberry pi, which is produced with far less economies of scale, and sold for a similar price point.

bdcravens3• 3 years ago

The Pi is sold without peripherals (remote) at that price point, they build little of the software, and given the supply/demand of late, there's a good argument to be made that it's well underpriced.

When I had DirecTV Stream, I bought their streaming device (basically an Android steaming device, but they made it super simple to go into programming, feeling more like traditional cable). They cost $120 each.

mdasen• 3 years ago

The thing I'd point out is that if you're taking 30% of revenue from 4 streaming services, you're getting more revenue than if you operated a streaming service. I agree that these boxes/sticks need some recurring revenue (120% of the revenue of the streaming services). However, should they receive more revenue than the services themselves?

If they're taking 30% from Netflix, 30% from Max, 30% from Disney, and 30% from Paramount, they're getting over $16/mo. Should it be $16/mo per user?

The problem isn't that they need revenue. It's that the revenue demands seem very high compared to the costs of maintaining those boxes. They aren't looking for $10/year to cover their costs and make some profit. They're looking to get more revenue than those actually creating the content.

paxys• 3 years ago

They already get plenty of kickbacks:

- Service providers paying them to have their buttons on the remote.

- % cut for movies & TV shows that users purchase on the device.

- % cut for subscriptions/IAPs from all the installed apps.

- Directly driving subscriptions for Prime Video.

- First party ads all over the interface.

- Selling and monetizing viewership data.

Of course none of this is enough, and so the company must continue to squeeze the ecosystem to placate shareholders.

hamandcheese3• 3 years ago

You are right, it is entirely unsurprising that the monopolist expects to see a positive ROI on their dumping scheme.

the8472• 3 years ago

free software updates

It's not like amazon is paying for the maintenance of the entire software stack. And the part they're doing they mostly have to do anyway to support new devices.

bdcravens3• 3 years ago

Which underpins the point, that Amazon is continuing development of new software and hardware even with such low/no profit.

neaumusic2• 3 years ago

advertisements are saturating everything, and I think chat gpt is replacing google largely due to this, avoiding quora and blogspam

not2b• 3 years ago

Cory Doctorow has been writing about this lately. It seems we are heading back to the economic system that preceded capitalism in Europe: feudalism, where almost all of the gains were taken by rentiers: people who made money based on what they own (land, exclusive rights from the king, etc). Want to sell an app? Pay 30% to the landlord, but only if what you want to sell doesn't conflict with their business model.

albert_e• 3 years ago

intel and AMD : wait maybe we can do that on our hardware too?

happytiger• 3 years ago

Time to pay the rent for the stuff you thought you owned.

Closed ecosystems and walled gardens have all the charm of dental surgery these days but there are all the users.

This is why we need more open standards. Open standards mean open competition and helps reduce monopolies.

kotaKat• 3 years ago

At what point does a streaming service build an installer that walks you through turning on ADB and push the app over network ADB and just distribute outside Amazon (and Google)?

(Sure, this is a lot of effort, but someone might go for the ol' sideload gag.)

wmf2• 3 years ago

Don't give DJI any ideas about starting a streaming service.

hrdwdmrbl• 3 years ago

A-priori, is there any explanation for a platform charging 30% other than monopoly? Imagine if a grocery store charged 30% for slotting fees?

prasadjoglekar• 3 years ago

30% is too high, but historically, cable networks gave about 15% of their impressions to the cable or satellite company to sell locally. So, on MTV, you'd see about 15 minutes of ads sold by MTV and 2 minutes of ads from the local car dealership that were sold by the cable co.

hnburnsy• 3 years ago

App availabilty will be the replacement for carriage fights we see for sat/cable. Soon you will need multiple devices to have all services.

PicassoCTs• 3 years ago

So all this only works if the consumers can not switch back en mass to piracy. Its sort of implicit. Either free computing dies or these companies.

varispeed• 3 years ago

That's substantially more than many countries charge Corporation Tax on profits.

asow92• 3 years ago

FireTV is a roughly a quarter of the OTT market in the US. Content providers could likely boycott the platform and survive if they got together and collectively stood against it.

ChuckMcM• 3 years ago

I find it amusing that television makers haven't started demanding a share of revenue on TV shows that have ads that they display. /s

pja• 3 years ago

Every streaming device manufacturer does this. Roku demands a revenue cut if you want your app on Roku devices, last time I paid for something Amazon Video on my Apple TV Apple forced the transaction to go through Apple Pay and presumably took their cut there.

It’s the standard business model in this market: sell a streaming device at or below cost and then turn to the streaming services & tell them that if they want access to the XX million people who own your device they’re going to have to pay up. 30% seems to be the going rate.

fennecfoxy2• 3 years ago

Lmao what a joke. Imagine if Mozilla said that they should get 30% of every ad that was viewed within/using Firefox.

Amazon requires services on Fire TV to give it 30% of ad impressions or revenue

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