Amazon has confirmed $15 Ad Opt-Out

You’re an old fashioned dinosaur, sorry couldn’t resist…

I must be one of these also as I have said no to all of the tablets, ereaders and such.  I do have a cell phone, just a plain old ordinary one where you make and receive phone calls.  Saying no does make my life so much easier. 

I've already said no.    I prefer normal books to these things.

It's funny how much of a Luddite I can be at times.

Well, for once I'm glad I don't have the newest model!  I love my Kindle, and it would be annoying to have ads.  $15 may not be much for some, but for me, it's just not in my budget.  I wonder if some tech savvy Robinhood will figure out how to jailbreak it and put the video up on YouTube, so an owner of this product could bypass the forced advertizing.

In a strange twist, I actually found I preferred the ads on my Kindle Touch. Normally I always opt for the no-ad version if possible, but I gave it a try last year knowing I could easily opt out later for the exact same total amount of money as I'd originally bought the no-ads version. And I found the ads have steered me to some good deals and some books I didn't know about. I don't think I'd opt for them on a Fire (not knowing if they'd be multiedia ads) but for a plain jane ad, I'm ok with them.

And really, no, I can't believe I actually wrote all that. Hell, I use all the privacy blockers in Firefox, disconnect add-on, ad-block, but for some reason this just doesn't bother me. Strange.

You gots to get a smart phone, once you have it you’ll wonder how you ever survived without one.

Hehehehe, I'm 63, I can't stand anything that is 'smart' at my age, plus I would have to have a need for it's functions and so far I haven't come up with any. 

The ads have never bothered me.....I rarely even notice them. I will be upgrading my wife's to the one with backlighting.....so I'll have a last generation touch version for sale about around middle of October.

I just use Aldiko on my smartphone, does the trick and ad free . I know it's not the biggest screen but it's sufficient since I read when I'm in bed

Well, what an interesting thread!  I do love my Kindle Keyboard but the ads drove me up the wall.  Must be getting old. 

It costs $50.00 to get rid of the ads on a Kindle Keyboard (comes with wi-fi and 3G) - $139.00 with ads and $189.00 NOT to have them.  Amazon recommends buying the one with the ads - of course - and claims they are unobtrusive.  Hmmm....

I didn't mind the ads for books but when they started sending me ads for routers and other products, I'd had enough.  I did actually buy a router but not from Amazon.  According to Amazon and the independent? reviews I read, most people don't mind the ads as they only appear in the wallpapers that come up when the Kindle is turned off but why should we have to pay NOT to have ads in the first place?  After about a week of them, I confess that I did pay them to leave me alone.  Pay money and the ads are gone in less than five minutes.  Sounds kind of like racketeering doesn't it?

The simplest (and cheapest) way to turn the ads off is to disable wi-fi which is very easy to do via the menu.  However, any ads that are already on the Kindle will continue to annoy you.  You don't need wi-fi to read books - just to download them unless you have 3G or 4G available and your Kindle supports either of them.  You could also download the books to your PC if you prefer but since Amazon tracks everything you do, I think downloading them directly to the Kindle is better than giving them access to a PC - not that I am paranoid.   

After running a search on the internet, I did find a way to remove all of the ads from my Kindle using a simple hack and they do stay off as long as wi-fi is disabled but...then it whines that it needs you to enable wi-fi so it can download its ads!  Aaaaaahhhhhh!  Seems to me that allowing ads should be a voluntary opt-in that provides users with some sort of compensation instead of forcing us to opt-out by paying them more money.  These days I am not sure who to be more concerned about - Amazon or Google! 

I really like my Nexus 7.  Same size and price as the Kindle, but no ads!  Screw you, Amazon!

*someone just made the List.

"I will sing for you for free, but it's $15 to make me stop."   

this is just absurd, i hate companies who build in annoyances and inferiority then sell upgrades - it's just like when a game comes out, and they pluck half the content up front then sell it as "bonus content".

this method is pollution, social pollution.  many forms of it exist, 5 different phones are released and there are 3 features.  no phone has all 5.  This model when applied to everything is a symptom of the biggest problems in our society - on one end, there is very low social upwards mobility so there are few opportunities for advancement, exasperated by a meritocracy that only selects 'the best' leaving everyone else out.  the other end has a way to move up, but it's ugly - create a big ugly nuisance that can be paid to stop bothering you, instead of releasing a good product, release 3 inferior ones that can be upgraded, instead of releasing the best cars- build them to break down.

it's a shame that this ugly free for all is even allowed, but when opportunities are scarce, people will get desperate and that results in these schemes.  of course, it is different for a start-up to use those schemes to get up and going. when the richest dos it just to make 'more money' it creates a parasitic environment as the norm, and once something becomes a norm it can be very hard to get rid of.

I think this makes perfect sense, although they could have made the announcements better.

This isn't building in "inferiority" in a product, it is getting companies to help pay for a product to end up in your home. I think (as a consumer) that this is a step forward, not back.

What if they sold computer games in the future, one version with ads and another without? I'd be game for that, if there was full disclosure on how the ads appear and it didn't change after the purchase. I could do with a 10 usd reduction on a game I don't play much anyway, and buy an extra 10 buck code to have ads disappear if I do. If I only spend 10-20 hours on a 40 usd game, that's different than watching ads on a game I pour a thousand hours into. F2P game devs should pay attention to that.

I don't understand the complaint. THe option is there to remove the ads. It's only $15. If $15 isn't in the budget for your tablet maybe you shouldn't be buying a tablet? Or you can just accept that you're selling your eyeballs to subsidize your purchase. When you consider the level of product you're getting to $200/$300 there's really no room to complain IMO.

It just seems a bit petty for them to charge to take ads off of something you purchase. Seems like everyone wants to nickel and dime us to death anymore, ever notice how much shipping and handling they get out of you?

That's what I mean about presenting it wrong. Instead of doing it like this with an opt-out, they should have done something like this:

"Product costs 315, or buy the subsidized* version for 299."

Exactly how they did it the first time around. Wonder why they went the other route this time, foolish mistake.

Probably should be looking at it the 'right' way.

[allowing] Advertising subsidises your purchase so the Kindle is cheaper.

If you pay the normal/full price you don't get the ads.

Not only does it sound better that way...it sounds quite FAIR ....;p

Bottom line?

Bottom line...;)

They can promote the LOWER price....;)

"The advertising opt-out helps the Kindle Fire better compete with the Google Nexus 7, another highly-recommended $199, 7-inch tablet, which lacks advertising. The two tablets are still very different, though, with the Kindle Fire much more focused on letting owners consume Amazon's library of content (although it also has Amazon's app store) and the Nexus 7 more tuned towards Google's mobile services and running all the apps available from Google Play."

Looks like the Kindle is pumping its profit margin vs. Nexus 7 with that advertising... 

$15 is an interesting figure compared to $299, I would say they don't want punters to pay the 15 dollars. Making up an advertising package for their site and on the Kindle for a business, could be (or is) a good income stream into the future.

Don't think they are doing it right ... cut the cost of the Kindle by around a half.  This would increase users, more awareness of their product, greater usage (and awareness) of businesses to their product, generate a larger income from an advertising revenue.

Short term pain for long term gain ...

I'm surprised Google haven't jumped at the chance.