[Fire TV General] harlekinwashere:
Why?

You can't just highjack an argument with an empty accusation aimed killing off all any discussion about what yet another action from Amazon to move installing 3rd party apps just another step further away - means.

Or you can - because, this is how all discussions are meant to be held in the post facebook age of "counterspeak" is impossible - and the popular (because eazy) argument always is the only one left standing.

---------- Post added at 12:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 AM ----------

Maybe I have to explain my position a bit more.

I am an individual who saw the popular product blogger delete his clarifications for posting unfiltered company PR as a first reaction on the most significant issues concerning open access on the Fire TV platform - as soon as he felt the public lense had moved an inch.

Now I find him reaching out to Amazon, on his own, to be the first one to publicise their rebuttle for "why you not seeing the last remaining API into the Fire TV anymore" is something you should not be worried about.

Without any form of source disclosure or journalistic distance. Basically in a "my buddies at Amazon told me "not true"" fashion. As a byline in a thread that talks about the issues of them doing so.

Not only that - but in response other people in here remind me, and rightfully so, that Amazons FireTV is aimed more at individuals that buy into Amazons service future - like Prime and Echo, than for informed users of Android set top boxes, that want to use them for different purposes as well.

And while I agree - the idea, that it is something that "just happened" is preposterous.

They were Android set top boxes at one point. We had people developing custom recoveries for them. Not just for the sake of doing so - but to allow us to do the stuff, beside whats possible out of the box.

You look at when Amazon took away the freedoms of the Android OS and its Linux Kernel, you look at where and when it banned apps (to replace them with their own cut down interpretations (/clones) of them), you look at - when and where they changed stuff in the UI - and you comment on it.

You look at what they did to the ecosystems on the Fire Tablets, the Kindle, and what they tried to create with the Amazon phone.

You talk about it - and not just advice XDA users to use voice assistants within the Amazon Echo ecosystem on their set top boxes more often - because "its almost like on the dedicated Echo devices", and those are the current "craze du jour" to be able to watch your TV shows, or listen to music -- and Amazon wants you to.

Going along with Amazons vision of a more and more closed down ecosystem - where the mere thought of a "general purpose computer" is something only developers working to put apps into Amazons stores, with the knowledge of the "secret remote access code" should be having, while the rest of the world will happily subscribe to fixed content subscription models, because all we care about is eazy voice search - is something I find hard to do.

Instead of selling people on voice commands, maybe spending a bit more time on "what ecosystem they lead into" and how the vision of it changed in the past months, is worth the while.

So - when Amazon decides to hide the adb dev. bridge, we don't just excuse them for it, we acknowledge the fact and talk about it first.

And if the product bloggers tries to keep it from happening (intended or not, but then - not with the necessary journalistic distance and integrity) - I'll do it for him.