Same with smart tv, phones etc. They all try to subsidize costs by using ads and only gadfly like us grouse over it. Many people simply accept it and moves on.
Also, many people aren't complaining and the competition is fierce. Many user aren't technical enough to find the skullduggery of such companies and at the end we all have to pay.
Regarding outlaw I don't see it happening soon tbh. Politicians simply doesn't care about such issue.
The Nvidea Shield Android TV box was an interesting case in this space. It is much more expensive than a Roku or FireTV box, but has some premium features.
Originally, there weren't ads. But because Google controls Android TV, intrusive ads started appearing. So you paid for a premium product, but ended up with a shitty experience.
I hadn't followed it much, so no idea if NVidea ever addressed it.
This also affected Sony tvs, I was super annoyed by it - I dns blocked their ad servers with pihole and now I get ads for YouTube, play store, and google music. Clearly the baked in placeholder ones.
It’s not ideal but I can tolerate it more then actual ads.
You can disable play services and uninstall the launcher updates to fix this, then running Netflix will prompt you to enable play services.
Clicking the first "enable" prompt in Netflix will start play services without enabling it and bring you to the app settings page to enable it. Don't enable it. (The force stop button is selectable, which tells you it's now running.)
Hitting back without enabling play services brings you back to Netflix, then you can use most drm streaming services, without play services updating your home screen with ads.
Only catch is play store won't work, but you can enable play services occasionally to download updates or new apps, then just repeat these steps.
Not a lie - its how the work the economics out. Lower the upfront cost of getting you on their product. The net present value of all the ink payments / subscription services is the value of the product. They probably have little to no margin on the actual printer purchase.
Items drop in price as more manufacturers pop up- only now they lie to us and tell us the price has stayed the same for over 15 years now, but magically they need to shove ads at us to offset the price? GTFO.
Most tvs are dirt cheap to make. In fact it's probably the OS they all design for every tv now that makes the price go up.
Companies screw us all from every possible angle and people defend this shit.
Companies used to care about customer satisfaction because they needed us, but thanks to regulatory capture they obviously couldn't care less about any of us, they just want as much money as they can squeeze out of us.
Also, many people aren't complaining and the competition is fierce. Many user aren't technical enough to find the skullduggery of such companies and at the end we all have to pay.
Regarding outlaw I don't see it happening soon tbh. Politicians simply doesn't care about such issue.