DENVER—Ads shown while you're streaming shows or movies are disruptive enough. But there's something uniquely eerie about what you see when a connected TV (CTV) platform fails to sell ad inventory. You may get a black screen accompanied by ethereal music or a confusing thumping beat, alongside a graphic that says something like, "We'll be right back."

Not only are streamers being forced to endure more ad time than ever, but that time doesn't even always benefit streaming platforms or advertisers. For the past six months, AdGood has been working to turn that blank, wasted ad space into messaging for good by helping nonprofits buy ad space for cheap.

During the StreamTV Show in Denver this week, Ars spoke with Kris Johns, CEO and founder of AdGood, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that sells unused, CTV ad space to other nonprofits. AdGood sells unfilled, sometimes donated, ad space at discounted rates, which it says can be as low as about $5 to $6 CPMs (cost per mille, or the amount an advertiser pays for every 1,000 impressions an ad earns). Johns said that CTV CPMs can vary depending on the scenario, with costs ranging from $12 to $15 and higher. Some CTV ad firms peg the average CTV CPM at $35 to $65.

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Amazon forced all Prime Video subscribers onto a new ad-based subscription tier in January 2024 unless users paid more for their subscription type. Now, the tech giant is reportedly showing twice as many ads to subscribers as it did when it started selling ad-based streaming subscriptions.

Currently, anyone who signs up for Amazon Prime (which is $15 per month or $139 per year) gets Prime Video with ads. If they don’t want to see commercials, they have to pay an extra $3 per month. One can also subscribe to Prime Video alone for $9 per month with ads or $12 per month without ads.

When Amazon originally announced the ad tier, it said it would deliver “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers." Based on “six ad buyers and documents” ad trade publication AdWeek reported viewing, Amazon has determined the average is four to six minutes of advertisements per hour.

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Discord members are biting their nails. As reports swirl that the social media company is planning an initial public offering this year and increasingly leans on advertising revenue, there's fear that Discord will become engulfed in the enshittification that has already scarred so many online communities. Co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy claims he's worried about that, too.

In an interview with Engadget published today, Vishnevskiy claimed that Discord employees regularly discuss concerns about Discord going astray and angering users.

"I understand the anxiety and concern," Vishnevskiy said. "I think the things that people are afraid of are what separate a great, long-term focused company from just any other company."

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Broadcom has cut the lowest tier in its VMware partner program. The move allows the enterprise technology firm to continue its focus on customers with larger VMware deployments, but it also risks more migrations from VMware users and partners.

Broadcom ousts low-tier VMware partners

In a blog post on Sunday, Broadcom executive Brian Moats announced that the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program for VMware Resellers, which became the VMware partner program after Broadcom eliminated the original one in January 2024, would now offer three tiers instead of four. Broadcom is killing the Registered tier, leaving the Pinnacle, Premier, and Select tiers.

The reduction is a result of Broadcom's "strategic direction" and a "comprehensive partner review" and affects VMware's Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Japan geographies, Moats wrote. Affected partners are receiving 60 days' notice, Laura Falko, Broadcom’s head of global partner programs, marketing, and experience, told The Register.

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Every time I write an article about the escalating advertising and tracking on today's TVs, someone brings up Apple TV boxes. Among smart TVs, streaming sticks, and other streaming devices, Apple TVs are largely viewed as a safe haven.

"Just disconnect your TV from the Internet and use an Apple TV box."

That's the common guidance you'll hear from Ars readers for those seeking the joys of streaming without giving up too much privacy. Based on our research and the experts we've consulted, that advice is pretty solid, as Apple TVs offer significantly more privacy than other streaming hardware providers.

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Do you miss the feel of tactile buttons on your kitchen appliances or lament car manufacturers' insistence on touchscreens? Have you ever found yourself clumsily fumbling with the door handles of a vehicle or distracted by the bright blue light beaming from your vacuum or Wi-Fi router?

If so, you're not alone. The way technology gadgets are designed largely relies on things like blue, often LED, lights, flat resistive or capacitive touch input, and software. Some, like Amber Case, founder of the Calm Tech Institute, believe that these design choices distract from devices' purpose and functionality and are calling for a new approach to product design.

"Calm Tech Institute is kind of a consumer advocacy body that's collecting stories and research from neuroscientists that says, look at how the mind wants texture, and look at how it wants physical buttons, and there's a part of your mind that needs [those]," Case told Ars Technica. "When we don't have it and we replace it with glass, we're not only losing something about human experience, but we're actually causing the mind stress.”

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VMware's business model under Broadcom is "legally and ethically flawed," a group of cloud service provider (CSP) customers and partners alleged in a report released today.

The report (PDF) comes from the European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO), which describes itself as "independent monitoring body" composed of members of the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade association, "with the support—acting as observers—of European customer organizations." ECCO says its goals include "highlighting ongoing or new unfair software licensing practices from any software vendors in the cloud sector," and it has previously written similar reports about Broadcom and Microsoft.

In its announcement of the report, ECCO said that CISPE members have met with Broadcom once about the changes it has made to VMware's business model, which is now built around subscriptions of bundled products, but didn't see any changes.

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VMware’s new owner is pushing legacy license-holders to buy costly software support subscriptions. Broadcom says it may audit VMware users to make sure they’re not skirting the rules.

Backblaze is dismissing allegations from a short seller that it engaged in “sham accounting” that could put the cloud storage and backup solution provider and its customers' backups in jeopardy.

On April 24, Morpheus Research posted a lengthy report accusing the San Mateo, California-based firm of practicing “sham accounting and brazen insider dumping.” The claims largely stem from a pair of lawsuits filed against Backblaze by former employees Huey Hall [PDF] and James Kisner [PDF] in October. Per LinkedIn profiles, Hall was Backblaze’s head of finance from March 2020 to February 2024, and Kisner was Backblaze’s VP of investor relations and financial planning from May 2021 to November 2023.

As Morpheus wrote, the lawsuits accuse Backblaze’s founders of participating in “an aggressive trading plan to sell 10,000 shares a day, along with other potential sales from early employee holders, against ‘all external capital markets advice.’” The plan allegedly started in April 2022, after the IPO lockup period expired and despite advisor warnings, including one from a capital markets consultant that such a trading plan likely breached Backblaze’s fiduciary duties.

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If I knew how much I’d end up loving my Logitech mice, I would’ve taken better care of them from the start. The MX Master 3S and Lift are my favorite mice for productivity, but their rubber coating can get grimy quickly. My white MX Master 3S looks especially shameful atop my desk, so I’ve been considering purchasing a replacement for a while.

Overturning my plans, though, Logitech recently raised prices across 51 percent of its portfolio, as detailed by YouTube channel Cameron Doughterty Tech. The firm has raised prices by as much as 25 percent.

The MX Master 3S I just mentioned is now $120, which is $20 more than before. That 20 percent increase makes it even harder to justify a new mouse, which I already considered a luxury purchase.

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FRDM+ provides access to an impressive library of automotive videos for $20 a month.

LG TVs will soon leverage an AI model built for showing advertisements that more closely align with viewers' personal beliefs and emotions. The company plans to incorporate a partner company’s AI tech into its TV software in order to interpret psychological factors impacting a viewer, such as personal interests, personality traits, and lifestyle choices. The aim is to show LG webOS users ads that will emotionally impact them.

The upcoming advertising approach comes via a multi-year licensing deal with Zenapse, a company describing itself as a software-as-a-service marketing platform that can drive advertiser sales “with AI-powered emotional intelligence.” LG will use Zenapse’s technology to divide webOS users into hyper-specific market segments that are supposed to be more informative to advertisers. LG Ad Solutions, LG’s advertising business, announced the partnership on Tuesday.

The technology will be used to inform ads shown on LG smart TVs’ homescreens, free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, and elsewhere throughout webOS, per StreamTV Insider. LG will also use Zenapse's tech to “expand new software development and go-to-market products," it said. LG didn’t specify the duration of its licensing deal with Zenapse.

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Debate around how much taxes US-based streaming services should pay internationally, among other factors, could result in people paying more for subscriptions to services like Netflix and Disney+.

On April 10, the United Kingdom's Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee reignited calls for a streaming tax on subscription revenue acquired through UK residents. The recommendation came alongside the committee's 120-page report [PDF] that makes numerous recommendations for how to support and grow Britain’s film and high-end television (HETV) industry.

For the US, the recommendation garnering the most attention is one calling for a 5 percent levy on UK subscriber revenue from streaming video on demand services, such as Netflix. That’s because if streaming services face higher taxes in the UK, costs could be passed onto consumers, resulting in more streaming price hikes. The CMS committee wants money from the levy to support HETV production in the UK and wrote in its report:

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