Amazon TV OS kills sideloading

Amazon is replacing Android with its own Vega OS on new Fire TV devices and will only allow apps from the Amazon Appstore. Sideloading, long used by power users and smaller developers, is explicitly gone. Amazon frames the move as a performance gain on low‑end hardware, but it also tightens app distribution control. — This marks a broader shift toward closed ecosystems on consumer devices, concentrating gatekeeping power over software and raising competition and consumer‑choice questions.