Fire TV searches to include ads

I totally missed this story last week. If you missed it as well, you might now find it interesting.

Fire TV will start inserting ads into search results.

Think about that for a minute. You're wanting to search for something on your Fire TV device, and the results include advertisements. According to AFTVNews, this will start later this year:

The search result screen is one of the last Fire TV interfaces that has remained ad-free but that will change later this year when the new Fire TV AI voice search arrives. Once the new conversational voice search arrives, expect to see ads mixed in with your actual search results. Other Fire TV advertisement changes being made include allowing non-media and entertainment brands to advertise in the first slot of the Feature Rotator, which is the big banner ad that takes up the upper half of the Fire TV home screen.

Of course, you get stuff like this when you search Google in your Web browser. That doesn't mean it's okay. It means they're getting paid to give you results you didn't ask for.

This is on the heels of Amazon putting more ads on the home screen. Sure, the amount of screen real estate isn't changing, but the content is including more ads, rather than related promotional materials (which, to be fair, are ads, although unpaid ads).

My Streaming Life is used to ads. I use more ad-supported content, and don't subscribe to a live cable replacement service. Ads aren't a big deal. That doesn't mean I want more of them.