I don't see that they have a choice. Nobody is going to pay for a premium device that shoves ads in your face. Roku has ads, but they are less aggressive, so I imagine they would start picking up Nvidea customers.
The bad review bombing hit both nVidea apps and Google's AndroidTV launcher pretty hard:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nvidia.teg...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
This also reminds me of the famous BlizzCon where they announced Diablo Immortal -- where the Chinese exec infamously exclaimed (after the audience started booing): "Do you guys not have phones?" -- when the dislikes of the videos reached into dozens of millions and Google has reset the dislikes, several times in a row.
So yeah, these things do happen and will likely happen again.
We harp on about Chinese having no freedom of press, yet we let these corporations do these things?
One thing to remember here is that reviews on an App Store are not public speech, they are always subject to censorship rules and always have been, because they are using a private for-profit service under a license agreement. It would be a different thing for the corporations you’re talking about to be able to censor criticism in the newspaper or on other people’s websites, but that’s not what’s happening here.
There’s also a legitimately difficult question here too. It has in fact happened that apps have gotten unfairly review-bombed, in response to public opinion, for third party reasons outside the seller’s control (Nvidia shield?), and also because of businesses playing dirty (look at Amazon and Chinese sellers for many examples of nasty review shenanigans). It is fair, and I would even say necessary, for the hosting company of a marketplace to be able to exercise discretion and editorial powers. It will always depend on the specifics of each case.
It is rather easy to start a negative review campaign, but no one ever participates in a good review campaign. There's no rage in that, that's why.
Inciting people to give 1 star reviews quickly snowballs into even people who never used the app doing it. Where's the fairness in that?
I am watching one of these social meltdowns with a Chinese game that just launched. After successfully bringing it to 2.6 points on Google Play, people are now calling for everyone to stop (because it's not that bad) and remember to change their reviews if devs address the problems.
Now the latter is never happening. People did the hormone let go all over the app on Play store, they're not cleaning that up.
All because of a reduced amount of rewards compared to the Chinese version.
I have a Sony Bravia TV and it uses Android TV as well. It's had the homescreen ads for a while now and I really dislike it.
https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00225587
The funny thing about that page is that the image used to be animated. The first ad is for some crime show and has blood splatter in the background (you can still see it if you look closely) and the next ad is for Elmo. If you look, you can see the word Elmo where the next ad was fading in.
Who thought it was a good idea to advertise a bloody crime show on the same screen that you are going to target the Elmo audience and then use that for promotion?
Google knows I have it, yet they still take the advertiser's money and make me watch the ad. Over and over again.
Another example: I regularly comment on FB ads making fun of the product or the ad. The algorithm does not understand humor or sarcasm, so it registers my comment as a positive interaction. I then get a ton more ads for that same category of thing (e.g. a massager where they use a static preview frame of a woman in yoga pants using it on herself to get people interested) even though I was making fun of it.
TL;DR it’s disappointing both that so much investment goes into ad tech yet it’s still leading to so many irrelevant impressions that people have a very low chance of interacting with. Ads could be much better targeted which would potentially make them less annoying if they actually helped people find things they’re interested in.
Your interaction mocking the ad is engagement which may generate another penny of revenue for Facebook.
They don't have a choice in that the contract they signed with Google for their OS prohibits them from doing so.
Why not just use great-looking photo backdrops instead of tacky logo walls?