This drives me nuts. When I first got the original fire tv it was fast and had no ads. I could easily recommend it. Now it’s stuffed to the brim with ads and is incredibly slow. When this one dies I’ll likely not buy a hardware device from Amazon ever again.

Yep that's what I have now. Same story. It started with ever bigger ads for prime shows, then ads for shows on other streamers I don't subscribe to. And now half-screen apps for chocolates and perfumes etc. In Spain by the way.

Also now I have to pay extra to skip ads on prime :(

I'm thinking of getting an Apple TV but considering how expensive it is I'm waiting for the next version. I don't want to pay top dollar for the 2022 version.

At least on a Roku you can block the ads with a PiHole

Yeah sadly this doesn't work on a Fire TV Stick. It ignores DHCP and uses its own DNS resolver. Probably DoH or something, I didn't dig that deep into it.