Amazon won't release Fire Sticks that support sideloading anymore

Posted by pjmlp 2 days ago

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Comments

Comment by y-c-o-m-b 2 days ago

I'm personally seeing an explosion of people embracing piracy. People that were previously vehemently opposed to it (like my in-laws) are now pirating large amounts of content. The rise in streaming service costs while simultaneously reducing catalog content is pushing a lot of these folks over. What we have now is almost worse than cable TV, so it makes sense.

Comment by hdgvhicv 2 days ago

When Amazon introduced adverts, I Cancelled. Went from near $1k a year on Amazon as a whole to nearly zero.

I still pay for Netflix, Disney, Apple, Spotify and bbc. I’m happy to pay for my entertainment, I refuse adverts.

When Clarkson farm came back I looked at re subscribing to Amazon, there were three choices, all with adverts.

I’m sure it makes money, but for me you get greedy and you lose money.

Comment by integralid 2 days ago

>I still pay for Netflix, Disney, Apple, Spotify and bbc

I have to admit that's a lot of subscriptions. Most people here are relatively rich, but no wonder people are priced out.

Comment by raw_anon_1111 2 days ago

That is still cheaper than the average cable bill even a decade ago

Comment by hdgvhicv 2 days ago

My total entertainment budget is 5% of my net income.

Comment by integralid 2 days ago

Most of my life I was strongly opposed to piracy for moral reasons. Now I... intentionally try to own (download/pirate) content I consume and I also do this for ideological reasons. So yeah, this effect is real.

Comment by add-sub-mul-div 2 days ago

Almost worse? Cable doesn't have unskippable commercials, we've had the DVR since 1999. In 1999 it was still possible for a new tech product to be user friendly.

Streaming was designed from the ground up to be user hostile with surveillance and reduced control over the video stream. People hold onto old specious ideas and don't update them.

Comment by dylan604 2 days ago

If you're under the notion that your digital cable box wasn't surveilling you, then you just weren't paying attention. Of course that box knew what channel you were watching and what time meaning they knew what you watched since your name and address and phone number and email address were all linked to that box.

Comment by pjmlp 2 days ago

Which is why my parents record they favourite shows on cable, and watch them later, fast forwarding over ads.

Comment by surgical_fire 2 days ago

Best investment I made this year was an old refurbished PC to use as a home server. Having my personal streaming services is actually pretty amazing.

There was a point in time, around 10-12 years ago, that I thought that piracy would eventually die, as the streaming services were pretty cheap and offered good quality/quantity. How wrong I was.

But it is refreshing to be sailing the high seas after such a long time. Brings back memories. Contrary to paid services, piracy actually got much better and convenient. Better quality audio/video, etc

Comment by amelius 2 days ago

On top of that, as long as big companies don't take the protection of my personal information seriously, why should I worry about violations of copyright laws? It works both ways.

Comment by righthand 2 days ago

That’s because Walmart is also selling Android piracy site streaming boxes. So boomers/technologically out of the loop think it’s legitimate.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/S6-Elite-Ultra-2024-SuperBox-TV-2...

Comment by c420 2 days ago

Tbf, that's a third party selling that box. But Walmart themselves do sell the Onn 4k stick/box which is the current every level pirates HW of choice to replace the firestick.

Comment by righthand 2 days ago

I have family members that have bought the Superbox in a Walmart physical store.

In fact here’s the conversation transcript of me asking about it:

Me: What was that piracy streaming box Uncle Gary got from Walmart? Superbox?

Them: Yeah

Me: Thanks

Them: I have it and I literally get everything for free. Like it already has the new super smash Brothers on it.

Them: Has every series and everything. I can give you the apps I have

Me: I dont need it haha just was showing people how illegal streaming is being sold in stores.

Comment by fishgoesblub 2 days ago

"Sideloading" is just a term to make installing software on your own hardware sound scary.

Comment by baranul 1 day ago

Totally agree. They give what should be a consumer right, who has paid for the device, a very sinister sounding label. People freely "sideload" on their PCs all of the time; installing software.

The people need to fight back, by supporting alternatives. Linux-based, de-googled, or de-amazon alternative devices.

Comment by 2 days ago

Comment by NoPicklez 2 days ago

I disagree.

It's a term simply used to describe installing software not through the official channels.

You'd be lying if you said it was normal practice sideloading applications to your mobile phone. The majority of people are used to installing apps through their respective platform stores. Which is why there is a term to name that practice outside of installing apps through the Google play store, for example.

We don't use that term on PC because it is the normal practice and our norms have evolved around that. Over time if sideloading becomes normal practice, we will stop calling it that and start calling it installing or downloading like we do normally.

Comment by fishgoesblub 1 day ago

There is no "official channels" on systems that allow installing software packages. Android for example, has no "official" channel because all stores just download and install APKs, like the Play Store, and FDroid. The same way you can go to a Github page and download an APK through your browser and install it. The only "official channel" I would say is the system APK installer.

Comment by NoPicklez 1 day ago

But to do that on many Android devices you need to specifically enable that in the settings. You have enable installing what Android calls "unknown" apps.

I don't really care about the technicalities of it. The point still stands that sideloading is a term referring to installing software outside of the vendors preferred method.

It doesn't mean its bad, its just the term used on devices like mobile phone where the installing of software has been traditionally more locked down to specific shopfronts.

The term being born more so out of Apple than Android to begin with.

Comment by BFV 2 days ago

Sideloading was basically the main reason people picked Fire Sticks over more locked-down options. Without it, it just becomes another closed streaming box, and a lot of the “power user” appeal disappears.

Comment by xnx 2 days ago

> Sideloading was basically the main reason people picked Fire Sticks over more locked-down options.

Any advantage to a Firestick over a Chromecast with Google TV?

Comment by hollow-moe 2 days ago

CCwGTV was discontinued, now there's only the Google TV Streamer thing...

Comment by xnx 2 days ago

Good point. I guess the Firestick advantage is $35 vs. $80 for Google's box.

Comment by kennethrc 2 days ago

"Basically the main reason"?

I can count among my friends and family some 50 Fire Sticks, and we're all happy with them, as they do what they say on the box. We Tech folks (and some more than others) live in a bubble, but the other 99% of the users couldn't care less about this.

Comment by spwa4 2 days ago

If that's true, then why would Amazon ever care about this?

Comment by kennethrc 2 days ago

Pressure from rights holders or law enforcement?

Amazon has sold ~250M Fire Sticks; there's just no way most of 'em aren't used by regular people as vanilla FSs

Comment by mlloyd 2 days ago

Because those folks don't move the needle on sales. They're buying one, maybe two firesticks and using them OOB. I'd bet a significant portion of sales go to people 'jailbreaking' them and buying in bulk.

Comment by spwa4 2 days ago

Then this would be stupid. Obviously if the product stops doing what people want (jailbreaking, not sure what the scare quotes mean) sales will plummet.

Comment by like_any_other 2 days ago

> In the fall, Amazon started blocking apps that the Alliance for Creative and Entertainment, a global anti-piracy group, has blacklisted.

I love how corporations are building an ecosystem where they don't have to bother with courts or the police, they can just ask each-other to limit what citizens, sorry, consumers can do. Fortunately they also spy on us profusely, which makes it less likely they get it wrong when those restrictions are used in more punitive ways.

Comment by yjftsjthsd-h 2 days ago

So does the fire stick have any advantages over Walmart's Onn streaming sticks?

Comment by kotaKat 2 days ago

Of one note, Walmart realized that they were in the running to be the next "Android TV piracy platform stick" and Walmart has already gone to the efforts to region-lock the devices to only be set up and used in the US...

https://www.aftvnews.com/onn-streaming-devices-now-must-use-...

Comment by bigyabai 2 days ago

Boy, I sure am glad that HN contributed to the vilification of sideloading.

Comment by janice1999 2 days ago

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll find a way to blame the EU for this too.

Comment by Retr0id 2 days ago

How so?

Comment by kcb 2 days ago

We can't let people install the applications they choose because my grandma. Is a pretty prevailing opinion

Comment by iamnothere 2 days ago

Just because an opinion is common doesn’t make it prevailing.

Yes there are many commenters here who say that, but I bet if we could somehow take a poll they would not be the majority.

I don’t know when people started expecting everyone on a given site to share the same opinion, but it is tiring.

Comment by bigyabai 2 days ago

Of course it didn't prevail. We live in an age where Russia and China demand VPNs get removed from the App Store. The US Government removed ICEBlock from all mobile storefronts. The worst-case scenario is staring us right in the face.

It's downright appalling that HN entertained these arguments against sideloading. No self-respecting software engineer can look at the centralized architecture of a billion-dollar software business and surmise that it wouldn't be used against them. The detractors against sideloading deliberately (or foolishly) ignored an outsized, glaringly obvious threat to their personal freedoms that was repeatedly emphasized by their opposition.

Oppression, censorship and surveillance are HN's just deserts.

Comment by iamnothere 2 days ago

Congratulations on completely ignoring what I said.

In perhaps clearer terms: HN is not a monolith. There are a variety of opinions here and intense disagreement. It’s very difficult to claim that any particular position is supported by a majority of users, given the arguments that erupt on nearly every topic.

(Or perhaps you are claiming that 100% of a site’s users are responsible for every opinion that is aired on a site, even if they disagree with it.)

Comment by bigyabai 2 days ago

I never claimed that the majority of HN shared that opinion, or that they should. You manifested both of those ideas from wholecloth.

The common opinion is still harmful, and it's enabled the harms to scale to the point we see them today. For an analog in modern politics, look at minority opinions like "think of the children" or "unnamed terrorist threat" and their role in manufacturing consent for tyranny.

Comment by iamnothere 2 days ago

> It's downright appalling that HN entertained these arguments against sideloading.

> Oppression, censorship and surveillance are HN's just deserts.

What is this if not an implication that a majority, or all, of HN users share this opinion and are thus responsible/deserving of the fallout?

Comment by bigyabai 2 days ago

A statement of fact? We share a common fate, switching to Linux or protesting Meta doesn't exempt you from the rule of law.

Edit: Oppression, censorship and surveillance are not a hypothetical consequence. The "justness" might be debatable, but the existence of it is objective.

Comment by iamnothere 2 days ago

It’s actually not a statement of fact, “just desserts” (implying that one is deserving of punishment or suffering) is a moral argument. Moral arguments are not statements of fact, although this does not make them necessarily invalid.

Comment by baranul 1 day ago

Speaking of which, HN arguably entertains executing censorship as much as any government, corporation, or organization. Often what is seen or presented, so people can think that's the prevailing view, is not a complete view. It's controlled and manipulated.

Comment by mschuster91 2 days ago

... and one that has quite the merit. A few hours worth of watching Scammer Payback will do that to anyone.

The thing is, wide parts of the population are extremely IT illiterate. The governments didn't act to protect them (say, by threatening the host countries of the scammers aka India in the case of the US or Turkey/Bulgaria/Romania in the case of Europe), so private companies had no other choice.

And hell even the best of us like Brian Krebs can fall victim to attacks [1].

I'm really out of ideas how we can reconcile the needs of the 99% vs the needs of the 1% without making life hell for the other group.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/security-journalist-brian-kr...

Comment by spwa4 2 days ago

... of course, the EU has the power to get the banks to block those money transfers. Hell, central banks have to be involved in those scams (hopefully/probably unaware). But they CAN shut it down, HARD. They're not doing that, at all.

> so private companies had no other choice.

Because Microsoft has demonstrated how it's done on their platforms? Obviously governments, EU or otherwise, have quite serious tolerance for scams.

Comment by collabs 2 days ago

Search iPhone or app store on this website. Read the comments.

Comment by fhdkweig 2 days ago

You will have to be way more specific. Every time I see a post bringing up the topic of sideloading (like this one), it is a complaint that either another product is locked down or Google itself is trying to lock everything down.

Comment by bigyabai 2 days ago

Look at the flippant dismissal in these threads (follow the discussions - don't just scroll past the parent comments). There's a shocking amount of disagreement:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28561941

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24146987

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39132453

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43421740

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29167948

Here's a few of the worst-aged comments, from a glance:

  Absolutely no need to wail and rant about Apple and their App Store practices constantly. Just use Android.

  You don't hear about 14 million iPhones being infected by malware

  But this is the argument with the cookie banners again, isn't it?

Comment by Tanoc 2 days ago

There's a reason Louis Rossman constantly berates his audience for having the attitude of "You fucking moron, you should've gotten [insert thing here]." He calls it elitism because it's not about commiserating and working to find a solution, it's about putting yourself above someone else for having made the "correct" decision on which multi-billion dollar corporation's fishhooks you decided to drag your skin over.

Comment by Retr0id 2 days ago

People like their iPhones but I'd describe the prevailing sentiment towards app stores as "critical".

Comment by redserk 2 days ago

I’d happily wager any amount of money I have access to that the people actually doing the implementation of these things are among the userbase.

Someone has to write the code and I doubt many people would quit their jobs over it.

Comment by Retr0id 2 days ago

By that logic just about anything the tech industry does could be attributed to HN

Comment by gdulli 2 days ago

There's lots of comments here where people promote trading the freedom of installing arbitrary code for the security of the app store keeping them safe.

Comment by surgical_fire 2 days ago

A lot of imbeciles white knighting for Apple when EU regulations threatened to break their walled garden.

Comment by burnt-resistor 2 days ago

The one of most important things alternative app stores allowed on Fire Sticks was the ability to change the apps remote buttons invoked rather than whichever dumb partners Amazon foisted on its users. Now, it becomes a jail break necessity for reusing and freeing locked-down corporate garbage. Oh and a hack to remove home screen ads or replace the home screen launcher would be awesome.

Comment by cyanydeez 2 days ago

On the plus side, they'll probably vibe code a bunch of security vulnerability and the highseas will be filled with a new generation of pirates!

Comment by raw_anon_1111 2 days ago

All of the streaming devices except for the AppleTV are sold at or below cost subsidized by advertising. If you care about a good streaming devices with anything above bottom of the barrel hardware and you don’t want to buy an Apple device, get an Nvidia Shield.

Comment by ottah 2 days ago

These devices and services are not nearly as sticky as these greedy lizards want to believe they are.

Comment by spwa4 2 days ago

This sort of thing brings back the late 2000's in Europe. Governments demanding devices "don't support piracy". Tech giants (really: Microsoft) responding, kind of, and failing.

Comment by dataflow 2 days ago

What's the best Fire Stick model that doesn't have this issue?

Comment by Jordan-117 2 days ago

Either the HD, 4K Plus, or 4K Max. Just avoid the Select for now (though there will be more models with the new OS in the future).

Comment by datahack 2 days ago

Cool. Hope they enjoy having one less customer.

Comment by croes 2 days ago

So goodbye FireTV sticks.

Getting worse on every metric isn’t a system seller

Comment by echelon 2 days ago

Everything is a platform play.

I think it's grossly unethical and negligent that our DOJ/FTC allowed them to acquire film studios, subsidize them with outside business unit profit, put ads across their own properties, then give it all away for "free". This destroys actual healthy industries.

They bought Lord of the Rings for egregious sums, emblazoned ads on all of their delivery vans, printed it on their packaging, and put it front and center on all their apps. Any other studio would be out a billion dollars on that. Then Amazon just gives it away.

How do you compete with that?

Meanwhile Warner Bros has to fight an uphill battle to reach the same eyeballs, spend a fortune on production and advertising, and then ask customers for their money. Why would they go to theaters when they can get it for free on Prime later? Or just watch one of the shows already on Prime?

And of course now Amazon has offshored the jobs, further put consolidation pressure on the industry, gobbled up more studios...

Every single one of these giants needs to be broken up. They are a cancer in search of more growth, and unfortunately in order to find that growth they are killing the host (healthy American industries and jobs).

Comment by NickC25 2 days ago

>I think it's grossly unethical and negligent that our DOJ/FTC allowed them to acquire film studios, subsidize them with outside business unit profit, put ads across their own properties, then give it all away for "free". This destroys actual healthy industries.

Film & entertainment is not the only area in which Amazon engages in this type of behavior.

They need to be broken up, and Bezos needs to pay his taxes.

Comment by PunchyHamster 2 days ago

I mean by that they should burn most the VC funding to the ground, because for vast majority of companies that try to take market space where there is some competition around, that's exactly the play, run long enough at loss that you get enough market share, make the walled garden if possible, then gouge prices up once the VCs come asking for payoff

Comment by mattmaroon 2 days ago

Meh. These sorts of restrictions are a problem with cell phones because you have two choices.

For this application, you can just get a raspberry pi for about the same price. And they’re not even taking it away from ones that I already had it. They just aren’t selling the ability anymore so you know it when you bought it.

Comment by john01dav 2 days ago

Whoever ends up using these devices second hand will be in for a rude awakening, which is bad for that person (even if it means that it just ends up going to ewaste and they get nothing) and bad for the environment. It's also bad for anyone who orders one new and isn't aware of the changes, although I agree that that is less bad than with phones due to the fact that a pi largely mitigates it.

Comment by pjmlp 2 days ago

Yeah, but then you are not the target audience, watching Amazon Prime and Netflix on the Raspberry Pi.

Comment by gschizas 2 days ago

> For this application, you can just get a raspberry pi for about the same price.

Are you able to run Netflix (or any other Widevine-based software) on a Raspberry Pi?

Comment by 2 days ago

Comment by j45 2 days ago

Is this supposed to stop Android folks?

Comment by pjmlp 2 days ago

Vega OS isn't Android, Amazon has moved away from it.

It is a Linux distro, and apps must be written in React Native (C++ libraries supported), or Web.

Comment by j45 2 days ago

Ah, appreciate the clarification.

I am guessing there's better devices out there now than a Fire Stick

Comment by newsclues 2 days ago

It’s to avoid making it easy for people to buy them put on plex or jellyfin clients and paying for access to pirate services.

Comment by 2 days ago

Comment by ranger_danger 2 days ago

How does this work when apps use GPLv3? Isn't the user supposed to be given a way to replace/update the code themselves?

Comment by dezgeg 2 days ago

GPL-3 dependencies are typically banned inside embedded device firmware. If a 3rd-party app uses those presumably it will be problem for the developer of the app, not Amazon.

Comment by ranger_danger 2 days ago

Right... how can the app developer enforce their license if the user cannot replace the program themselves?

Comment by mewse-hn 2 days ago

> How does this work when apps use GPLv3?

Android Open Source Project is mostly Apache licensed, it runs on the Linux kernel which is GPLv2.

This situation with the firesticks is essentially the same play that TiVo pulled way back when, and the GPLv3 is supposed to counter.

Comment by pjmlp 2 days ago

Amazon has moved away from Android for the new Fire devices. It is a Linux custom distro with React Native and Web for apps.

As for Android, I would assert that Google has successfully removed everything GPL related from early Android days, the only thing left is the Linux kernel.

Comment by 15155 2 days ago

GPLv3 doesn't entitle you to signing keys or the ability to remove them: you can release, compile, and inspect the source which will ostensibly still be provided - but not practically use it on the hardware you purchased.

Comment by mananaysiempre 2 days ago

It very much does.

> “Installation Information” for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source. The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.

> If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information. But this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install modified object code on the User Product (for example, the work has been installed in ROM).

Comment by pabs3 2 days ago

The SFC (the only GPL enforcers at the moment) disagree; they say that both GPLv2 and GPLv3 require the ability for users to install modified versions on their devices.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...

Comment by yjftsjthsd-h 2 days ago

Okay, I'll bite. What do you think is the difference between GPLv2 and 3?

Comment by DroneBetter 2 days ago

v3 was just the one stipulated by your grandparent comment's question that your parent answered.

Comment by yjftsjthsd-h 2 days ago

That's not an answer to the question I asked.

Comment by varispeed 2 days ago

But Amazon has infinite money, so licences are meaningless.

Comment by an0malous 2 days ago

I don’t know how, but somehow this is Apple’s fault

Comment by gdulli 2 days ago

How could you not know the argument that Apple has normalized selling devices that forbid the ability to run arbitrary code without their permission?

You're not required to agree that that's a bad thing, but how could you be unaware of the reasoning at a high level?

Comment by raw_anon_1111 2 days ago

Yes because video console makers haven’t been doing this since the 1980s…

Comment by an0malous 2 days ago

I mean for starters it’s obviously not true. Almost every electronic device has programming and none of them allow you to run your own arbitrary code. Video game consoles, MP3 players, drones, roombas, TVs. In fact Apple is the one that pioneered the idea of a “personal computer” in the first place, there was no expectation that you could program your devices before this.

Comment by NoPicklez 2 days ago

This is in no way Apple's fault.