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Amazon faces a Proposed class action lawsuit Which claims the company made early versions of its Fire TV Stick devices obsolete over time.
The named plaintiff in the lawsuit, Bill Merriwader, who filed it in Los Angeles County Superior Court, said he bought two second-generation Fire TV Stick devices from Best Buy in 2018, four years after the company first launched the Fire TV Stick. Merewhuader said that after a few years, he experienced slower streaming speeds, difficulty navigating menus, and long loading times.
In the end, he was unable to use the device. He purchased new Fire TV Sticks in 2024, according to the filing.
Merewhuader says in the complaint that Amazon intentionally made older devices perform poorly to incentivize hardware upgrades and “defective” Fire TV devices before their useful lives had expired.
An Amazon representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The plaintiff’s lawyers said they had no comment other than the legal complaint.
Streaming devices are getting older
Popular streaming devices from major tech companies have been around for nearly two decades. apple It debuted on AppleTV in 2007Roku followed the next year. Google Chromecastwhich developed streaming devices from set-top boxes to add-on dongles, launched in 2013. Amazon followed up the following year with its own Fire TV box and the additional stick, released later in 2014.
As previous generations of devices from these tech companies age, it’s common for them to lose functionality, as they can’t run newer apps or access certain features. For example, Apple’s first Apple TV Box is inoperable today and was eventually replaced by Apple TV 4K streaming boxes.
The filing is based in part on allegations that Amazon did not inform buyers that Fire TV Stick devices would lose functionality or become inoperable over time, and that the performance of early devices did not match promises Amazon made in its marketing.
The proposed class action would be open to anyone who resides in the United States and still owns a first- or second-generation Fire TV Stick as of January 1, 2023, or April 1, 2023, respectively.