If the Fire TV Stick 4K Selectand Vega OS dropping had you thinking Amazon's entire streaming stick lineup would eventually move from Android-based Fire OS to the newer Linux-powered alternative, I wouldn't blame you. However, according to Amazon, the tech giant has no plans to ditch Fire OS -- at least not yet.

After years of development, Vega OS launched a few months ago alongside the Fire TV Stick 4K Select. The new operating system required the tech giant to develop fresh in-house apps and, at the same time, it limits the number of third-party streaming apps available on the Fire TV Stick 4K Select (at least until third-party developers port their apps over). Given its low-powered focus, some apps even stream directly from the cloud to the streaming stick. That said, the app situation has slowly improved over the past few months, with Vega OS recently being updated to support VPN apps (via Pocket-lint).

In a recent LinkedIn post, Robert Williams, Amazon's VP of Device Software and Services, said that the company "will continue to build on it [Vega OS] and with" Android. "We also felt that we could build something more purpose-built for consumer electronics devices that was faster and used more modern components and design," said Williams.

Adding to this, Fast Company's Janko Roettgers, a reporter that's been tracking Vega OS' development for years, writes that the operating system is an "insurance policy against Google." Given Fire OS is based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), there's always a possibility (however slim it might be) that Google could decide to prevent Amazon from using its versatile OS for some reason.

In a statement to several publications, Amazon said the following regarding Fire OS' future:

"We’re a multi-OS company, and Fire OS isn’t going anywhere. Vega OS gives us the flexibility to create premium experiences at every price point -- notably on smaller, more affordable devices that run on low memory footprints, but also on larger devices running complex AI programs such as Alexa+. Creating and managing our own operating system lets us innovate across the whole tech stack within our devices where we need it."

So why is Amazon really launching Vega OS?

It likely has more to do with piracy than anything else

At least outwardly, Amazon presents Vega OS as a less resource-intensive alternative to Fire OS, but behind the scenes, the e-commerce giant likely has a different motivation for launching the set-top box operating system. If you're familiar with the world of Fire TV streaming sticks, you'll be well aware that many people opt for Amazon's device because it's easy to sideload less than legal Android-based streaming apps on the device.

With Vega OS, that's not possible given the streaming device is entirely locked to Amazon's own app store. It's also important to note that while Amazon says it won't ditch Fire OS anytime soon, there's nothing stopping the company from slowly switching future Fire TV devices to Vega OS. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Fire TV Stick 4K Max make the jump to Vega OS whenever the next generation version of the streaming stick is released.