Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

bloomberg.com

716 pointscoloneltcb529 comments

I don't think this move is in Amazon's best interests long term. Their competitive edge with Prime is that I go to them first because I assume they'll have what I want, at a fair price and the highest level of convenience.

If they are no longer the "Everything Store" then they won't be where I go to for everything...

Totally agree. They are destroying their most valuable component of their brand, for a relatively weak one (Prime Video).

I have Prime and prefer Netflix, because Prime Video still doesn't have a great selection.

Yeah I agree with this. There are a couple of shows that are only on Prime Instant Video that I use it for. But I'll still watch it on my Apple TV. If Amazon chooses not to build an app, I'll go elsewhere, I won't buy a whole Fire TV just to watch a show.

All this for one of the weakest parts of Prime. I've been a Prime member for 3-4 years before I watched my first prime video. I simply don't care for the service.

I also have Prime but wish I could display it on our TV using Chromecast. The only way to do this is to cast a tab (desktop) or cast the entire device display (Android). It would be great if Amazon Prime Video supported Chromecast with a cast button like Hulu, Netflix, Youtube, Vevo, etc...

My wife was just complaining about this very thing. The solution to Prime's streaming issues isn't to ban the sale of Chromecasts it's to add Chromecast support to prime.

This is a very odd choice on their part.

Their solution is for you to buy an Amazon Fire Stick and use it instead of your Chromecast.

>Amazon Fire TV Stick

Which unsurprisingly, doesn't support media from the Google Play Store. The only acceptable streaming device is one from a neutral third party (Roku, Tivo, etc.) who will support all providers.

But you still can't use the Cast button from your phone to launch on those devices. My Xbox One shows me the option for YouTube videos, but nothing else. There isn't a one-stop option right now.

It doesn't make any sense. They want to sell me Prime not the Fire Stick. To sell Prime get it on as many devices as possible and adding Chromecast support is easy.

Amazon makes some strange decisions.

They want to sell the Fire TV and Fire Stick because it will get you 1) used to talking to their remote, 2) hopefully get you searching and browsing around for all kinds of stuff - their selection is a fascinating mix of really new stuff and older stuff and b-movies, and it's often surprising what's covered by the prime subscription and what you have to pay extra for.

By getting you to spend more time in their interface, they can add things. E.g. Prime Music had me spending a lot of time checking out playlists, some of which may very well lead to purchases of albums where only a couple of songs are available for free.

It also gets them penetration for whenever they add shopping to these devices, and e.g. lets you talk to Echo and ask it to bring up the top five best new phones on your TV for you to choose fro.

Getting Prime on Chromecast would help their penetration of Prime, but it might hinder their overall service penetration by giving some people a reason not to get a Fire Stick. Especially when the Fire Stick/Fire TV and Chromecast are all cheap enough that there's little stopping people from getting both...

It may very well backfire for them, but there's all kinds of reasons for them to want to push the Fire TV devices hard.

But the Chromecast has no interface of it's own! If I use Netflix on Chromecast, I'm in the Netflix app on my tablet or phone. Amazon can still own it's interface.

I don't have enough ports on my TV for a Fire Stick and a Chromecast (and everything else) so I'm going to choose the one with the most options (Chromecast).

Yes, but if you're used to picking an app and casting from it, rather than picking a device and chosing apps on it, Amazon faces a much larger hurdle. On the Fire TV/Stick they control the UI. On Chromecast, they have to not only convince you to use Chromecast, but convince you to stay in their app.

They can lose a lot of users and still find it to be worth it for the extra engagement of the ones they did get.

I got a fire stick when it was on sale for like $20. It is a useless piece of garbage with a terrible user experience. The UI is clunky, as it tries as unsuccessfully as every set top box manufacturer to do everything with a crappy remote. Chromecast did it right and going back to the bad UI of a set top box is just unacceptable anymore.

Hell, until recently, you couldn't play Prime Video on Android at all without resorting to Flash trickery in the browser. (But, of course, you could play it on Fire OS devices, even though they're running a fork of Android.)

Amazon really does not like Google. This is not a failure on Google's part, this is all of Amazon's own making in an attempt at product lock-in.

...I had Prime Video working on my Android phone a while back, but it no longer works.

Is there a new, new way to get it to work that I don't know about?

Install the Amazon app, but not the Amazon app from Google Play, the sideloaded one directly from their site, and then do a bunch of convoluted stuff to install the Prime Video player within that app.

It's been a couple of weeks since I did it, but I got it working on my nVidia Shield TV, and I remember the process being something like:

1) Sideload Amazon app APK 2) Sideload Amazon Video app APK 3) Open Amazon app and log in 4) Open Amazon Video app

However, it wasn't a pleasant experience. The version of the Amazon Video app I was able to get working didn't scale well to large screens, didn't work well with remote-based navigation, and didn't seem to do HD. I watched one episode of something, and haven't used it again since.

You can install the Amazon Video app on Android now via the Amazon app. No Chromecast, so I haven't really used it much, and it doesn't look like you can tell it to download shows onto your SD card instead of internal storage. I'm guessing I'll end up using it for limited times when I wouldn't have a TV anyway, like airplane trips.

In some regions (apparently Japan): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.avo...

In others: http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-com-Amazon-Video/dp/B00N28818A

For most users, installing the Amazon Appstore is required.

Everybody here is bashing Amazon but do we know why Amazon video isn't available on Chromecast or Apple TV?

I think, at least for Chromecast, it's because they didn't implement Chromecast support in their app. Google makes the API's available so I think it's up to Amazon to add support for that.

Yes could this move be an attempt to force Apple to allow the Prime app on the Apple TV? I've always wondered who: Apple or Amazon is stopping Amazon Instant from appearing on the Apple TV.

There's nothing preventing Amazon from creating a video app for Apple TV, HBO, Showtime and many others have created similar apps for the Apple TV. This is Amazon choosing not to.

That's probably the case, but how do you know for sure? Maybe Amazon did create one and Apple rejected it?

Amazon wants to sell digital downloads on their app, and they don't want to give anyone 30%. HBO does not.

Apple wouldn't force Amazon in a 30% rev share deal. They don't with HBO and Showtime. And if Apple tried that, then Amazon would be in the right to block Apple TV sales.

It would be fairly trivial for Amazon to provide an Android/iOS app that supports the Chromecast.

On the other hand, maybe Amazon is angry at Google for not making Google Play Movies/Music available on the 'Fire' line of tablets, and this is retribution?

> On the other hand, maybe Amazon is angry at Google for not making Google Play Movies/Music available on the 'Fire' line of tablets, and this is retribution?

The equivalent to that would be refusing to release Amazon Video on the Play Store, which Amazon has done.

Banning hardware products from the Amazon marketplace is an escalation.

> They are destroying their most valuable component of their brand, for a relatively weak one (Prime Video).

This is why it almost seems like Amazon's Google+ moment: one underperforming product area somehow manages to convince leadership to change the company's underlying principles in its advantage to the long-term detriment of overall brand perception.

Edit: 32 points in 19 mins for this comment. I really hope someone from Amazon is reading.

This is a really good point.

One difference here is that Amazon can quietly go back on their decision if it doesn't work and they see people aren't viewing the Apple TV, Chromecast and Fire as substitutes- since it is just a few listings.

Google integrated everything with Google+ the vestiges are still all around.

For example, it still isn't possible to create a YouTube channel without Google Plus.

Get over it already, single signon is here to stay a n d it is (now) easy to create a bunch of different "pages"-identities that are hard to trace back to your main account.

Or am I wrong?

Here is what I am referring to:

>> So in the coming months, a Google Account will be all you’ll need to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel and more, all across Google. YouTube will be one of the first products to make this change, and you can learn more on their blog. As always, your underlying Google Account won’t be searchable or followable, unlike public Google+ profiles. And for people who already created Google+ profiles but don’t plan to use Google+ itself, we’ll offer better options for managing and removing those public profiles.

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/everything-in-its-ri...

This was published on July 27, 2015

Sort of, except Amazon loses some cred with everyone who tried to buy it from them during that time, and from press like this story where now I'll be a little hesitant to check Amazon first for Apple products in general (because who knows where else they're trying to compete). Which is a terrible impression to give.

That's an interesting point. When Google started pushing G+ social networks in general was all the tech media were talking about. Now it's the death of cable and the rise of streaming services. And just like Google wanted it's piece of the buzz-worthy social media space, Amazon wants a piece of the growing streaming market.

It's certainly not a good precedent to set banning competitor's products from their store. I could come up with a dozen different slippery-slope scenarios.

G+ is vestigial at best and creepy at worst, but at least there's something to be said about a giant sprawling octopus of a tech company managing to wrap everything into one, centralized platform.

Amazon on the other hand seems to be subscribing to the amputation school of thought. I don't know a soul that's ever bought an Amazon gadget that wasn't exclusively named "Kindle." If people truly preferred Amazon's devices to those from Apple or Google, they would have bought them.

I'm one of those souls, and really like both the Kindle Fire and Fire TV I have. This move has really soured them to me though - Amazon have a great product in Prime Video and their Fire lineup, a product which doesn't need these sort of shady tactics.

I'm interested in why you consider it shady for a retailer not to sell a product. I don't see Google or Apple selling products from anyone but themselves (mostly. Apple does sell a few accessories and Google has some pure editions which they have a hand in). Pick any retailer, and there are brands and products they don't sell.

I could see it being shady if you were talking about denying people access to things they need, but we're talking about selling on the Internet here. It's not like people will have a hard time buying Apple TVs or Chromecasts because they aren't on Amazon. They just have to type the name into their address bar.

I would guess they got a lot of complaints from people who said they couldn't get Instant Video to work on their streaming devices, someone calculated the cost of customer service vs profits of selling those devices, and decided it wasn't worth it... how is that any different form any other retailer choosing to drop a product because it isn't working for them? Customer service costs and returns are probably the most common reason for anyone dropping something.

I know Amazon has a bigger selection than pretty much everyone, but does that give them a moral imperative to not discriminate on products? Seems like people are considering Amazon as if they were a public utility, which seems like a pretty impressive achievement for them.

>I'm interested in why you consider it shady for a retailer not to sell a product. I don't see Google or Apple selling products from anyone but themselves (mostly. Apple does sell a few accessories and Google has some pure editions which they have a hand in). Pick any retailer, and there are brands and products they don't sell.

That's because google and apple aren't the Walmart of the internet, they make electronics. Amazon specializes in selling stuff, google and apple make stuff and also happen to sell them on their website, or you could buy it from somewhere else (in google's case)

But as an Apple user, I already know they are hypocritical control freaks who don't respect their users.

But this is literally the first time that I've seen Amazon play that way. So it may not be different from any other retailer, it's different from how Amazon used to be. (Or at least was perceived to be, which amounts to the same thing.)

Are you familiar with Primecast? A third party reversed how Amazon authenticated its movies and for a day, you could actually cast the movies that your Prime subscription allowed, including rentals. It was no different than if you authenticated on the website. Amazon quickly scrambled to shut that app down and still hasn't answered with their own method for Chromecast. It isn't even a technical issue, it is a control issue.

Now I don't know the licensing terms they have with the content providers, but they certainly aren't fulfilling the consumer demand.

No, I wasn't familiar with that. Still, the present issue seems one step worse than that.

Digital music sold used to have DRM, because it just couldn't be avoided since the licensing terms of the content required it. The Primecast seems likely to be the same.

It's more like them saying, "Sorry, user, we can't let you do that."

Where as this (and what Apple does) is more like, "What's that user? You want <competing thing>? Well, fuck off!"

Thinking on it though, massively slowing down deliveries of books from publishers Amazon doesn't like was actually the first time I've seen Amazon do something like this. So this actually isn't the first time; now its a pattern.

Side rant: Amazon Prime's media crap is also especially annoying to me personally, since I spend most of the year outside of the US, where it doesn't work at all. (Go Netflix!))

Amazon have pitched themselves as a place to buy "anything" (with varying definitions of anything, granted). Apple and Google have never pretended that's what they were.

The analogue would be Google not showing Facebook pages in their search results. Google has pitched themselves as the place to find anything on the web.

(But it's perfectly fine for Amazon's search to only show Amazon stuff, because universal search is not part of their claim.)

I consider it an issue of confidence in a product to also sell the competitors' versions. It's one of those things that makes Amazon a great company. I hope they rescind the ban.

> I'm interested in why you consider it shady for a retailer not to sell a product. I don't see Google or Apple selling products from anyone but themselves (mostly. Apple does sell a few accessories and Google has some pure editions which they have a hand in). Pick any retailer, and there are brands and products they don't sell.

I think the equivalent for Google would be deliberately not listing duckduckgo or bing in search results for "duck duck go" or "bing".

The particular thing I find shady is their reasoning for it, that they don't want to sell devices that won't work with Prime Video. That's all very well, but the reason they don't work is because Amazon haven't put the effort in to make it work - there's nothing preventing them from adding Chromecast support, and I doubt Apple would reject support for Apple TV.

It's slightly different in that selling media was originally Amazons core business. First books, then DVDs, then Kindle.

Streaming (music or TV) is just a new distribution and pricing mechanism for the same product. For Google, social media is a fundamentally different product to search. You can argue that they are both ways of 'finding things' but there are still huge fundamental differences.

‘Search’ isn't a product by Google, user impressions are.

Not to mention that it's completely Amazon's decision not to offer streaming apps for AppleTV or Android in general release. Do they really make that much on their hardware that they're willing to continue alienating most of their customers?

So they offer it for game consoles, "smart" TVs, Roku, and handheld devices of all sorts… but not Apple TV or Chromecast? And that's by their choice, not Apple or Google's? Huh.

They don't offer it for Android at all (even though their own fire devices are based on it), and I'm guessing they opted out of AppleTV (since iirc, they offer it for iOS devices)

Ditto, though here's the problem with amazon: buying apple stuff on there is a shit experience.

Go there right now and type macbook pro in the search. You'll get a page of results with these top results:

   Apple MacBook Pro MF839LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (128 GB) NEWEST VERSION
   Apple MacBook Pro MD101LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop
   Apple MacBook Pro MJLQ2LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (NEWEST VERSION)
   Apple MacBook Pro MB990LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop
   Apple MacBook Pro MJLT2LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (NEWEST VERSION)

As a consumer, how the hell am I supposed to know what those are? I see a bunch of sellers called their listings "NEWEST VERSION" but is that true? What the fuck is a MF839LL/A?

The whole thing is a mess.

But yeah, I bought prime 4 years ago and amazon became my one stop shop for everything. This is their threat to google's business of taxing ecommerce via owning discovery. Amazon wins if search starts there and skips google; excluding items from prime dilutes that value.

But let's be honest: this is obviously amazon leveraging their ecommerce power to force apple to build amazon prime video into apple tv.

AFAICT, that problem is general to buying anything through Amazon except things sold directly by Amazon.

Yeah, it's becoming annoying. Batteries are more likely fake/offbrand than not, even when the ad claims otherwise, and last at best 3 months instead of 24 in my car's key fob. I got frustrated and eventually bought them at a local hardware store. Replacement chargers are chinese imitation shit. I've had an increasing number of purchases that don't match their descriptions. Amazon has been very good about it, and always refunds my money, but I'm still left without the plant mite spray or battery or whatever that I needed in the first place, so that only helps so much. I would have thought amazon would be working to get a handle on this but maybe their analytics tell them it doesn't matter.

Yeah I've bought bad batteries from Amazon (they were recharged AAs being sold as new), of course from a third-part seller.

Amazon doesn't care; thousands of people complain, and they keep letting it happen.

Amazon Subprime.

Bought some LED kitchen track lights on amazon that uniformly burned out in < 2 months

Yes me too. Never thought to blame Amazon. Do you have a recommendation for a more quality product?

Honestly I'm not sure stuff sold directly by Amazon is an exception.

But at least you'll be able to return it without hassle if it's not right

GradeAUnderA brought out some really good points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_osrpU9UWrc

That's not the point. Who cares if it's expensive or confusing. They are banning products that are competing with their own products.

Amazon is simply a store for majority of the people who shop there.

If Google banned Amazon from search results you would probably be outraged.

Google is a monopoly or near monopoly in search. Amazon is not a monopoly or near monopoly in general ecommerce (excluding ebooks.) Seeing as amazon is not a (near) monopoly in general ecommerce, I can't be bothered to care. If you don't like amazon's policies, patronize walmart, target, newegg, apple.com directly, or a dozen other competitors. I personally think amazon is wildly overestimating their ability to extract concessions from apple.

Based on the news article, Amazon isn't banning competitors. Roku competes with Fire TV, and the Netflix app it bundles competes with Prime Video. The article says Amazon will still sell Roku. Indeed, Amazon's Fire TV also supports Netflix and Hulu and HBO and ESPN and whatnot, not just Amazon Video.

The news article says that they're banning video streaming devices that don't support Amazon Video. So if that's true, it's not that they're banning competitors, but that they're forcing streaming devices sold on Amazon to support Amazon Video in addition to whatever else they support.

I don't know what the primary motivation is, but I could genuinely see some customers being confused. Imagine you're a customer that's just signed up for Prime. You don't have a TV stick to watch it on, so you shop around the store and find a streaming device that's highly reviewed. You buy it and plug it in, only to find that Amazon Video does not work on it, or works poorly. This is plausible; this kind of thing happens, especially with unsophisticated, less computer savvy buyers (the kind of people who think the Google search box is the Internet). I could easily see my parents making this kind of mistake.

Whether that's the primary motivation, I wouldn't know. It seems like you could also deal with that problem by changing the way the product is displayed, for people who have Prime Video, and show a big warning like "This product does not support Prime Video" on the side so they can't overlook that fact when buying it. (Though this could lead to other complications - I could imagine there being weird legal or anti-competitive issues with making claims like that about competitors' products in a way that they can't control, that's not part of the product description. Banning them might be the simplest way.)

> The news article says that they're banning video streaming devices that don't support Amazon Video.

The only reason the devices don't support Amazon Video is because Amazon has chosen not to build apps that support those devices.

But you need to go deeper. Amazon hasn't built apps that support those devices because those devices manufacturers want a cut of their profits off of subscriptions or rentals because those device manufacturers (Google / Apple) want people to use their own services instead.

That's only for in-app subscription purchases. You didn't think Apple was getting a 30% cut off Prime video subscriptions just because there's an iPad app, right? Or Netflix for that matter.

This is a problem entirely of Amazon's making. And I don't understand it. No one makes money on the devices, they make money on the subscriptions. It's in their best interests to be on as many devices as possible.

Or because they don’t support the specific DRM system used?

If it were the primary motivation to avoid confusing Prime members they could easily just add a bold description field: DOES NOT SUPPORT AMAZON VIDEO. They could also just drop it from Prime-eligible rather than drop it from the store entirely. Many Prime members filter things by Prime-eligible (for many different reasons) and that would possibly be more effective than dropping it entirely.

This is half Amazon's problem, and half Apple's problem for not giving their computer models unique names. Type iPhone 6s and you get much more clear results.

No, it's that these listings on Amazon are kind-of-like "eBay" just without the auctioning part. The seller can write whatever he wants. Amazon just evaluates the complaints of the buyers.

There is a standard naming convention with Apple products though that they and everyone else uses:

MacBook Pro (mid-2015)

I feel like this is actually a potentially serious problem for Amazon, and it's getting worse.

The other day I went to buy a pair of standard issue Apple headphones. The same exact ones that come with the iPhone. Yeah they are slightly overpriced but I am really used to them and they sound good and my pair was getting ratty and I wanted another one.

It was literally impossible to do. Try it and see what I mean. I see "Original OEM iPhone Earbuds with Mac and Volume Control" as the first result, for $4.94. As a non-clueless person I know those definitely aren't real. But are the results for $24.99 or $29.99 real? It's really just impossible to be sure, you can look for "Sold by Amazon" itself but even that can be ambiguous. The day I went to do it I literally could not. I gave up and went to apple.com where it took 30 seconds.

That's not an uncommon experience. I typically buy Apple stuff from the Apple online store, or from B&H, as a rule, because this is such a problem. And I'm noticing it more and more with other products, things like USB hubs or IP Cameras and the like.

My default has always been to buy almost everything I can from Amazon as the first preference, but it's getting harder and harder to do in entire categories of products. I hope someone there is paying attention to this problem, it's real.

Also true with non Apple products eg Samsung accessories are all fake on Amazon.

yes. I've felt this way lately. The overall quality of Amazon has gone downhill sharply. It's resembling eBay or even Craigslist today. I was considering getting Prime a few days back when it was on sale. But I remembered that the majority of things I buy today aren't shipped by Amazon even. Never mind their whole "Prime day" fiasco (which Amazon never owned up to).

From an ethical standpoint, I'm also starting to wonder if Bezos is one of the most unhinged, corrupt people on this planet. Stories from their top tech employees down to their warehouse workers have been nothing short of horrifying.

I have this experience probably about half the time I'm shopping on Amazon (which I do a lot of). If you look in the comments/reviews for many items there will be dozens of people saying e.g. "product shipped was not the product pictured", "only buy if the seller is so-and-so if you want a genuine product", "received a used/returned product", and on and on. I've taken to spending more and going out of my way to buy some things in retail stores, where I can at least be reasonably sure I'm not getting a counterfeit.

It's a big problem when you know exactly what you want but can't find it because of all of the noise.

A couple more Amazon problems:

They obviously treat their vendors like red-headed stepchildren; they know they have to be on Amazon to make sales, but the margins have to be tiny. Ever notice how when you order something from an Amazon "partner", the tracking information is magically worse than worthless? And of course, if you have a problem they'll correct it immediately at their own cost, because Amazon threatens to turn off the sales faucet if they don't make the Amazon Experience pleasant for the consumer.

Don't get me wrong, I still shop there. Particularly for electronics -- 3% cashback on my Amazon card is nothing to shake a stick at.

But it's feeling worse and worse to do so.

Great point. Don't they also earn money from each AppleTV and Chromecast sold through Amazon? Unless they were doing it at a 0 gain seems stupid not to profit from sales of competing products. They must really be banking on the increase in Prime sales making up that difference.

Perhaps they were relying on cross-selling purely on these products.

That's precisely what it is.

Hey, maybe we know where Vic Gundotra went!

This is more about Roku vs Google & Apple than Amazon vs Google & Apple. Roku has been the market leader by far up until 2015.

One problem is that Amazon is now inviting consumers to open a direct relationship with Google or Apple. If a user makes a purchase of an Apple TV or Chromecast directly, Google or Apple now know exactly who they are.

Generally speaking, making it hard or cutting off sales channels for specific products can work to divert sales. Big retailers do it. However, if it is a product the consumer really, really wants they are going to jump through the loopholes to get it. I imagine Apple TV will eventually fall under that category.

Alternatives? Let Apple TV and Chromecast continue to be sold but place large warning messages and suggest buying a Roku or Amazon whatever device instead.

If I understand the news article correctly, streaming video players will be allowed as long as they support Amazon Video too. If that's a correct understanding, then it implies that Amazon would sell Chromecast or Apple TV again if those companies add support for Prime Video.

I could be wrong though - this is based on the limited info in the article.

Amazon claims it's removing Apple TV and Chromecast because they don't support Amazon Video... but Amazon was the one who decided not to support Apple TV and Chromecast in the first place.

Chromecast and Apple TV are more than popular enough to warrant app support, so it can't be a question of platform marketshare, either. (Chromecast support is so simple that the idea Amazon can't do it is laughable.) Android TV is not as popular, but Amazon already has an Android TV app, except it's restricted to Sony TVs: http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/16/amazon-disables-the-...

This is not a retaliation. Amazon's suggestion that this is Apple or Google's fault is simply false.

Chromecast support is not really simple, considering Amazon probably uses a different DRM system than the one Google implemented.

But for a day you could use Primecast. Amazon deliberately disabled that, so there isn't a technical reason they couldn't have resolved it.

That's what I thought it sounded like too, which made me think of the strange part - as far as I know, any Android app provider can make their video app Chromecast-compatible. It's up to the app provider, not Google. Amazon already has a Amazon Video Android app, which last I checked, they only provide over their proprietary app store. So it's up to them to make Prime Video work on Chromecast, they just have to put their Video app on the Play store, and set it up to Cast.

I have a Roku, and I bought it for the exact reason that they don't (at least from what I can tell) have their own streaming service. I wanted a device where the makers have a direct stake in making the best experience for all streaming services possible, and there are no second class citizens.

I didn't want a device coming from a company participating in multi-sided markets. It just ends up with an internal conflict of interest and it's always not clear to the customer what side is the win.

Roku was spun off from a Netflix project:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3004709/inside-netflixs-project-g...

While I agree (and own a Roku myself) I'm concerned that the end game here is all the content owners removing their stuff from Roku and forcing us to buy a dozen HDMI sticks.

I was just thinking about how they have buried a great product, google hangouts, inside a me too product, google+, and neglected it bc it doesn't have a business model attached. What a waste! Hangouts is much better and more reliable than Skype, but very difficult to find and sign up for. All it needs is its a stage of its own and a business model and it could destroy Skype, which needs to be destroyed imho. Combined with some business features it could rule the meeting room worldwide, then expand into consumer from there.

http://hangouts.google.com no longer requires a G+ account.

Of course each iteration of hangouts/voice/contact makes it harder to send an SMS message to someone in your contacts... you now have to type in the number, and if you happen to do it on your android phone from a contact, it tries to send an advite to use hangouts... It's really annoying as a fan of Voice/GrandCentral for years.

Actually, no. This seems more like when Apple stopped allowing Kindle books to be sold through an iPhone: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-you-cant-buy-kindle-books...

Not sure why i got downvoted without an explanation. Must be some annoyed Apple fanboy.

Well, a notable difference is that the only party preventing Amazon from streaming to Chromecasts is Amazon.

Wasn't that because Apple wants 30% off all sales? Microsoft had a similar clash with Apple over Office for iOS. The apps were free, but if you wanted to buy a license to use them, you would have to purchase that license directly from Microsoft because Apple wanted a slice of the upsell. This would have added a 30% tax on top of the universal service fee Microsoft was selling, even if it was just a link to the website from within the apps. I don't know how that was finally resolved, but this is just how Apple conducts business.

Honestly, Amazon seems like they're in a bit of a panic to get into digital consumption. This is slightly reminiscent of Fire Phone.

I have prime, and mainly consume via IOS. It's annoying to search for something only for results to come up as "You can pay for this!".

It'd be nice if there was a way to hide all non-prime content (or at least, if it is there - then it should be the default with, say, a "Search again including pay video" option)

I dunno, I wouldnt be surprised if Prime Video and AWS actually make money, unlike the "most valuable component" that does not. Besides, will you really stop using Amazon if it is the "Everything except a few devices store"?

I don't think that Netflix is Prime Video's competition; it's iTunes, Google Play, and DVD sales.

Prime Video is, like, what does this even have to do with why I signed up for Prime. We use Prime because we order enough stuff in a year that postage would be over £45. They're trying for nonexistent "synergy" to satisfy internal numbers in some way, and nothing a customer wants.

Absolutely, and if they really try to open up a front against Google, that might be a stupid move, as they risk an "accidental" visibility penalty in their Google SERPs. Usually, Google doesn't play this low, but Amazon has much more at stake.

Shameless self-plug: See both your Netlix and Amazon Prime accounts' content at once at our site justwatch.com - filtered to your likings :)

Remember when Google TV used to do that?

This reminds me of the stupid stuff Comcast kept doing when they were trying to get approval for the merger with Time Warner Cable. It only hit them after the fact that they could sue Verizon over "skinny bundles" or buy TWC.

I see how Amazon loses from this but not how it will win.

I use them both as well. What I like about Amazon* Video is that it has new releases. If I don't catch a movie while it's still in the theater, I can watch it the day it comes out online.

I still have a Netflix DVD subscription, so I could go that route too, but I always forget. Are there other good ways to watch new releases? Looks like the iTunes store also lets you rent movies.

*Edit: I meant Amazon Video here when I said Prime Video. (The difference being that Prime has a set of included videos you can watch for free)

Vudu is a pretty solid platform for both renting and buying digitally. It works on pretty much everything these days, but I don't believe there is a native AppleTV app yet.

Amazon _Prime_ almost never has new releases. Can you point to any recent release that's on Prime right now?

You're right (fixed). I meant to say Amazon Video, not Prime Video. I was thinking of the feature where you can pay to rent or purchase a video, not just the set of movies that are included in Prime without additional cost. I agree that the 'Prime' part does not have a lot of new releases.

It's not your fault. Amazon's branding is confusing.

not to mention the fact that Prime Instant Video UX is complete shit...

> I have Prime and prefer Netflix, because Prime Video still doesn't have a great selection.

In my (limited) experience, the selection between Amazon Prime Video and Netflix is about the same. While this move very much feels like degrading performance of competing office suites on your OS or even refusing to run your windowing system on a competitor's OS (cough Microsoft cough), I can see why they would do it. For one thing, it's kind of the reverse: it's telling Apple and Google to get their shit together and not degrade performance of Prime Video on their devices (last I heard, my Apple loving family still couldn't watch Prime Video).

To someone like me, who owns no Apple products and isn't tied to Google either, but is an avid Netflix user, Amazon Video and Netflix fill my needs quite nicely. Of course, take this all with a grain of salt from someone who's logging so many hours climbing and hiking he hasn't seriously watched TV/movies in a while. But the couch potato wife hasn't complained, and she's the one who bought the Amazon Fire TV.

> For one thing, it's kind of the reverse: it's telling Apple and Google to get their shit together and not degrade performance of Prime Video on their devices

Chromecast only doesn't support Amazon Video because Amazon hasn't made apps (iOS, Android, or Web) that support the Google Cast SDK, not because Google does something to degrade performance.

AFAICT, essentially the same is true of AppleTV -- Amazon Video doesn't work on the platform because Amazon hasn't bothered to make an app for the platform.

> Chromecast only doesn't support Amazon Video because Amazon hasn't made apps (iOS, Android, or Web) that support the Google Cast SDK, not because Google does something to degrade performance.

> AFAICT, essentially the same is true of AppleTV -- Amazon Video doesn't work on the platform because Amazon hasn't bothered to make an app for the platform.

Interesting. Do we know definitively that this is the case? I mean, is it possible Amazon did submit apps and they were rejected? Or in the case of Apple they didn't want to give Apple their 30% cut?

And this may seem facetious, but are we begging the question of who should be supporting Amazon Video in the first place?

> Or in the case of Apple they didn't want to give Apple their 30% cut?

As a data point, when Amazon bought ComiXology, the in-app store was immediately removed, and replaced with syncing purchased made on the ComiXology website.

> For one thing, it's kind of the reverse: it's telling Apple and Google to get their shit together and not degrade performance of Prime Video on their devices (last I heard, my Apple loving family still couldn't watch Prime Video).

Apple doesn't make apps for the vendors, the vendors make apps for the platform. HBO and Showtime created apps for Apple TV. Amazon is deciding to not create apps on Apple TV and Chromecase, not the other way around.

Selection was not the issue for me. I view on PC and streaming to a PC from Amazon Prime was essentially non-functional. Crappy Silverlight, which would buffer eternally and never play, or flash, which still paused to buffer every minute.

Netflix just works. It'll even play in in higher resolution (not full HD) without the HDMI cable. Prime just says "no" and gives the low-res stream.

There are many things on Amazon's service I'd watch, but the actual viewing experience for me is awful.

Agreed, trying to go from one season to the next in the same show is painful.. Amazon Prime Video in general has turned me off ever since they started.. I've had a prime account since it first came out and tend to buy a lot of stuff on amazon... more and more, it's a fairly unpleasant experience and I'm now questioning the need for a prime account.

I think it's funny that you proved exactly what the poster above you was saying. You don't like Prime simply because of selection.

i couldnt find an andoird app for their service last weekend.

terminated my testmonth after 3 hours because of this and went back to netflix

Within 3 minutes of reading this, I canceled my Amazon Prime account. The fact they require sideloading APKs for streaming video on Android devices, and even then only support SD quality was annoying.

This just tells me they have no intention whatsoever of improving the situation. I guess I'll use Google Express now.

Yes - they had an excellent brand for quantity of product and quality of service. Their whole competition with Google and lack of support of its products has been undermining that.

It seems a particularly bad move given the quick delivery space has many competitors now and Wal-mart, Target, Jet.com... have began competing with online orders. Reputation will be extremely important.

The lack of chromecast support was why I never jumped on Prime video.

I get that you want more people to use your fire stick, but as a source of entertainment competing with Netflix and HBO, you want to be more accessible, not less.

Just out of curiosity, was streaming video your primary use case for Prime? I'm a huge fan of Amazon Prime (for purchasing goods with free two-day shipping), but I've never used the Prime streaming services at all.

No, I've primarily used Amazon for purchasing physical items when I need them yesterday. That said, I'm no stranger to Amazon's streaming product -- prior to the release of the Chromecast, Amazon was my primary source for purchased video content via PS3 (Currently I have 38 movies and ~8 seasons of television episodes in the account). This also meant I'd frequently use Amazon Prime video to avoid having to switch over to the Netflix app.

I'm far less concerned with the availability of the streaming product itself, and more upset about the corporate mindset this behavior demonstrates.

Same here, shipping is probably my biggest benefit, prime's video offerings are about the same as Netflix's

This is why I use Prime Video over Netflix. Video selection is equivalent, but Prime is cheaper and comes with the added shipping, music, and eBook benefits.

I'd never thought of it from that angle -- though I'd have a hard time letting go of my Netflix exclusives (house of cards, etc)

I believe they required sideloading because of Google Play's restrictions on selling items / subscriptions without giving Google a cut.

Unlike in the iTunes App Store, that restriction is only on items and subscriptions that can only be consumed inside the app. That's why Amazon can continue to sell music and Netflix can continue to sell subscriptions in their apps. There is nothing stopping Amazon from offering Prime Instant Video through the Play Store with no modifications.

Google does not restrict the ability to sell items through your app; that's Apple. You can implement a store in your app with purchases if you want, without using Google's payment system. And many such apps exist in the Play store.

What you can't do in an app in the Play store is implement your own app store and load arbitrary apps. And Amazon forces you to install the full Amazon app including its app store, rather than offering a standalone version of Amazon Video.

Amazon likely does this because people care enough about Amazon Video to jump through hoops to get it, and once people have jumped through those hoops, Amazon can then try to get them to use the Amazon app store instead of Play.

And their forcing you to install an app store shim that asks for ALL/ALL application rights is why they got booted to my "snoopy vendors only" Android profile: the one with zero human contact information. For those of us willing to put the time into it I'd love a cleaner way to containerize apps and firewall off personal information.

> "snoopy vendors only" Android profile

That's a brilliant idea, especially now that the multi-user support works on phones in addition to tablets.

If you're willing to root your phone there's an xposed privacy framework that inserts itself between the OS and snoopy apps to allow finer access control.

http://repo.xposed.info/module/biz.bokhorst.xprivacy

This allows you discretion for apps you still wish to install but demand too many privileges.

That's interesting, I didn't know you could do that with Android. That is a hell of an awesome feature, coming from an iOS user. IMO, we'll almost be forced to maintain multiple identities in the future, and it's good to hear that Google is getting a jump on that trend.

It makes sense, of course, considering that this approach will let Google -- but no one else -- know who all those identities point back to.

It's not in every Android distribution: for instance Samsung doesn't include it on their phones, but profiles are one of the benefits of running stock Android on a Nexus phone.

An Android for Work profile runs on Android's new containerization feature (derived from Knox). You'll either need a separate Apps account or use a custom Work Policy Controller[1] as a lightweight app container.

I'd not be surprised if someone has built something marketable on this stack already.

[1] https://developer.android.com/training/enterprise/work-polic...

Slick! I will have to try imposing a profile on something like Uber to see what happens. :-)

> I don't think this move is in Amazon's best interests long term.

I hope this is correct but I am unsure. People will probably not realize this is the case, and it is unlikely to affect _too_many_ people_ so the brand goodwill won't be that damaged. This is the same thing google does with search results, maybe not so much with competitors (maybe they do, I don't know) but they do penalize things they don't like. I remember the rapgenius penalty and to be clear I am not suggesting that this is the same thing as in the article, but to your point, I hope users get angry about this but I am unsure to what extent it will hurt them.

That could be. It may depend on how much focus Google and Apple place on marketing this products. If I notice a few things I want aren't on Amazon in a row I would stop looking there first. And if I start searching google or wal-mart.com first instead of Amazon they lose those sales.

I don't think most people will care about this as a negative PR event - but the fact it can't be found may contribute to them not being the first search.

Google doesn't penalize competitors in search rankings!

I have found them to be constantly more expensive on tools vs Home Depot and Lowes. I used to think that Amazon would pretty much aways give me the best price (+/- random sites that may or may not be shady), but when it comes to any type of tools that has not been the case. I have also found Costco to be often times cheaper for household supplies such as paper towel, etc. Amazon's main benefit is convenience, but their price advantage seems to be slipping.

Amazon has never been able to keep up with physical store prices on loss leaders- items that stores frequently mark down below inventory costs to get people in the door in the hopes they will also buy enough marked up merchandise to make up for the loss.

I did compare Bounty paper towels and Charmin Ultra about a month ago between Costco and Amazon and found that the dollar savings I got at Costco didn't make up for having to drive 20 minutes to get there (and battle all the soccer moms for a parking space). This might not be the case everywhere and for everyone, of course, but for me I am usually willing to pay a little more for next day delivery to my door in exchange for shopping in my pajamas.

Even on just middle-of-the-road household goods, ignoring weekly sales, Amazon doesn't seem very competitive with brick-and-mortar stores for staple goods, or at least those I buy. I occasionally run down a list of stuff I typically buy at Walmart (shampoo, detergent, OTC drugs, sponges, that kind of thing) to see if any of it has gotten competitive on Amazon, and it usually ends up being way more, not just 5% more or something but more like 50%+.

Prime Pantry is extremely competitive for me (in New York City) compared to brick-and-mortar stores.

I agree that before Prime Pantry, however, that Amazon was more expensive or I had to buy way to many items (e.g. 10 bottles of shampoo).

Interesting. Just a couple of days ago, I compared some kitchen cleaning supplies at my local Target to Amazon and found Amazon quite a bit cheaper. I wonder if it's a matter of regional variation, where Amazon just isn't pricing competitively for your local market and Walmart is.

Probably very much the case- I live in one of the most expensive metro regions in the US so unless I drive a ways out of town to a Walmart things are marked up pretty far.

Not even limited to such items, I'd say - when I was looking to buy a (then new) Nikon D7100 in 2013, Amazon's price was quite in the middle of the pack, with some tiny stores offering the best prices.

These days, for anything non-trivial, I'll treat Amazon as the virtual storefront, then look around for competing prices, with Amazon as the last resort.

I've always wondered if that was a regional variance. Since I live in Texas, I assume the prices of our grocery store staples are cheaper than they would be in, say, downtown New York City.

But if I lived in a more urban, city environment, where easy parking isn't a given and picking up groceries in a car is more a hassle, then the time savings of having Amazon deliver for close to the same price that I would pay in store is much more worth it.

Amazon's prices for the dry goods I buy (cereals, energy bars) are now often comparable or more expensive than buying locally here in Manhattan. (The grocery stores I am comparing are on my walk home from my subway stop)

When I was in college Amazon had better prices on these products than my local stores in Iowa.

This is why I'm much less excited about Amazon than I once was.

Do we know Amazon is actually offering the same prices to people in NYC and Iowa? Seems like they could maximize their profit by normalizing pricing to a user's regional cost of living.

they almost certainly aren't. in nyc people shop to optimize for time, not price.

Of all products, food probably shows the least regional variance, at least in the US. (Source: I've lived like everywhere.)

Anecdotal, but I recently needed a drill and couldn't wait for Prime shipping. Home Depot was charging $15 more, but they price-matched Amazon.

Here's an example:

http://www.amazon.com/Ryobi-P882-Lithium-Ion-Impact-Driver/d... - $155

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-ONE-18-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Dri... - $150

For a Ryobi, it'd make sense that Home Depot would be cheaper since anyone selling it on Amazon is a reseller; Ryobi is sold exclusively by Home Depot in the US.

I've seen the same with Scotts, Fiskars, and a few other brands. Also, things like planes, chisels, etc. seem to be cheaper at B&M stores. On the other hand Amazon does have a wider selection.

I used to think that Amazon would pretty much aways give me the best price

People used to think the same thing about Walmart. But so long as they have you "in the door" they will try to get you on margin. (Their margin)

This is a great insight, and it reminds me that there are scores of people in management at Wal Mart and Amazon tweaking prices, working out margins, and generally fretting over the prices that we spend microseconds considering. Caveat emptor, always!

if you can find a seller in the marketplace (many of those still offer amazon prime shipping), that is not in your state, you can avoid sales tax. did you factor this into your price comparison?

Your point is valid, but this may be a bad example. Construction margins are so thin, and construction businesses so sensitive to it, and Lowe's and Home Depot are so fungible. Even among retailers, there's no room for margin. Especially on easily-compared items like tools; construction workers know what they're buying.

> If they are no longer the "Everything Store" then they won't be where I go to for everything...

I'm working on it: http://percht.com , its still under heavy development and im not done crawling everything, but its coming. yeah you cant order on percht either, but i have to start somewhere... There's cool stuff behind the scenes including react / nlp / and neural nets in case anyone would like to collaborate.

Amazon has something like this, but only targeted to India: http://www.junglee.com

Edit: Disclosure: I worked on Junglee for two years, but don't anymore.

I bet they have studied and considered this angle extensively before announcing this decision.

Probably true, however I wish the innovation/research went into making Prime Video a better product. I have had it (as part of Prime) for years but only watched one or two videos on it b/c of inferior selection, UX, and quality.

> If they are no longer the "Everything Store" then they won't be where I go to for everything...

They aren't the "Everything Store" and never were. It was a marketing slogan. They boot products from Amazon.com all the time.

I had a long held belief that Amazon is a principled and trust worthy company... sadly that vision is crumbling before my eyes.

Um, no offense, why?

They crushed all the technical bookstores because they didn't have to pay sales tax. Their customer service beyond cheap refunds is abysmal. They understand how hard it is to distinguish between stuff that is only serviced through them, but choose not to fix it. And Bezos is famous for being both an asshole and micromanager.

One-stop? Sure. Efficient? Maybe. Trustworthy? Pardon me for laughing.

Um, no offense, why? They crushed all the technical bookstores because they didn't have to pay sales tax.

Um, no, they crushed all the technical bookstores because they could always get you the book you wanted very quickly and at a good price, unlike any other bookstore on the planet. Every one of those bookstores could have done the same thing in the Internet age, but the thing is, they didn't.

I do miss bookstores like Computer Literacy but that's pure nostalgia -- I'd never want to go back. I couldn't give a crap about sales tax one way or the other.

Their customer service beyond cheap refunds is abysmal.

What other kind of customer service is there, for a retailer? When something goes wrong with an Amazon order, I don't have pay for it. End of story.

They understand how hard it is to distinguish between stuff that is only serviced through them, but choose not to fix it.

That much is true... their UX is a dog's breakfast, and always has been. Best thing you can say about it is that it could be worse.

And Bezos is famous for being both an asshole and micromanager.

Well, I don't report to him, so... good. Retail is not a good business for dilettante CEOs.

One-stop? Sure. Efficient? Maybe. Trustworthy? Pardon me for laughing.

They've seldom put a foot wrong where I'm concerned. This does sound like a pretty dumb move, though. What's good for the customer is good for Amazon, and this isn't good for the customer.

> Um, no, they crushed all the technical bookstores because they could always get you the book you wanted very quickly and at a good price, unlike any other bookstore on the planet. Every one of those bookstores could have done the same thing in the Internet age, but the thing is, they didn't.

First, Amazon had a built-in advantage on sales tax for a LONG time. That's 8% off the top where I live.

Second, Amazon leveraged its volume in the popular bestsellers to strong-arm the publishers on the technical area. So, while my local bookstore would have to eat the inventory if I ordered a book and didn't want it, Amazon could return the inventory. This was HUGE.

Third, Amazon often WASN'T any faster than my local bookstore, but they would always claim they were. A couple times I ordered a technical book overnight from Amazon that claimed it was "in stock" and it would appear 2 weeks later--just like my local bookstore said it would take to get it from the publisher.

Fourth, my local technical bookstore was really good about ordering online and jumped immediately. It still didn't help.

The combination of no sales tax, monopoly position to get better terms from publishers, and outright lying about stock simply crushed the technical bookstores.

Well, jokes on Amazon and the publishers, since I can't browse technical books any more, I don't buy technical books anymore. And those had huge profit margins.

No offense taken. I used the word belief because this is my own personal perspective. Up to this point, everything that Amazon has done, it benefited me (personally), as a customer. This is one instance where I can't fathom a guess as to how it benefits me or any of their customers. Especially when they give an insulting reason, like customer confusion.

Amazon also refuses to sell firearms. Do you view that as unprincipled?

That's probably more of a licensing issue.

I agree, this is a bad move for Amazon.

I also go to them because they probably have what I want, and they have reliable shipping. So if they start cutting things out, what's going to be next?

Amazon also has items listed by sellers for cheaper than Prime but they are buried in the buy box.

That might be changing. I can't say more than that.

If you add the shipping costs, those offers are usually more than what prime offers

Everyone adds shipping cost; shipping is never free. Anyway, Even in Seller-only items, the buybox is always awarded to the cheapest "price+shipping" listings, but I have seen seller items pushed down for the sake of Amazon or FBA products even if they are cheaper on the whole.

> I don't think this move is in Amazon's best interests long term.

Who cares if it's in their interests? Given the power they wield, the more relevant question is whether it's in the interest of the broader market.

It's probably retaliatory due to Apple and Google leveraging their platforms against Amazon's video distribution.

It makes sense that they would, in turn, leverage their physical distribution platform against Apple and Google's physical streaming products.

Amazon probably feels as though they were hit first in this fight.

> It's probably retaliatory due to Apple and Google leveraging their platforms against Amazon's video distribution.

In what way? No idea about Apple but as other commentators have said - is there anything stopping them supporting Amazon Video on Android/Chromecast?

100% agree. It seems so obvious. Not sure how they didn't think that one through.

and I bet a few EU anti trust cases Amazon hasn't made a huge amount of friends and there's more than a few European publishers that would love to see Amazon get into trouble.

It's kind of like a grocery store eliminating the name brand items that compete with the store brand. In this case, the store brand (aka Amazon Instant Video), isn't that interesting to me. I might be willing to consider Amazon Instant Video if they made it available on Chromecast. I'm not sure I'd use it even if they gave me an Amazon branded streaming device. I like the simplicity of my Chromecast, and it serves me well.

You should be selling electronic content to be the everything store! That's the whole point. If apple and google tries to stop amazon from selling tv shows or movies, of course amazon is going to fight back

It's very clear there's been frustration from their brand around customers using their Prime Instant Video product. I've been targeted with ads, marketing emails and even direct mail to use the service. It's clear they want more eyeballs on the thing they're giving to prime members for free.

In the end, all it would take to get me fully on board is a native XMBC plugin.

Exactly. I've ordered from Amazon more than 700 times in the last 5 years. I usually start my product search on Amazon, and if they have what I need and the price seems reasonable, I often won't even check NewEgg, Ebay, Google shopping, etc.

Intentionally reduce your selection for customer-hostile reasons like this and I probably move some of my product search traffic to start with Google shopping, which is bound to cost them more than what they make from the incremental video rental I might make. It's not like I'm not going to have multiple Apple TVs in my house anyway...

Agreed. I cancelled my prime membership today due to this unsavory behavior.

>"Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime," Amazon said in the e-mail. "It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion."

Google and Apple now both have open SDK's for creating streaming apps for their devices. Isn't the the fact these devices don't "interact well with Prime Video" entirely Amazon's fault?

Exactly. I bet they'll capitulate eventually though. Prime Video membership seems like such a small thing to gain in exchange for staying out of the Apple TV store.

If I was Apple I would try really hard to avoid Amazon's service working.. they are a more direct competitor than say netflix, as they sell both the hardware and the service

I think you're thinking of it backwards. Amazon Prime video working on iOS and AppleTV is in Apple's interest because it means however many prime members will use those devices. Apple's content strategy is purely about selling hardware. Apple's not getting into the content business like Amazon and Netflix are (both of them are producing original programming... all Apple's done in that regard is the iTunes music festival in London which seems to be more PR event and technology test than anything else.)

This is why Apple worked with Netflix, HBO, etc to get apps on the Apple TV even before the TVOS was ready.

Apple isn't Microsoft in the 1990s where it was Apple or the highway. They've allowed Kindle, Netflix, and other apps, some featured prominently on their default configuration.

They've even gone so far as to present options when looking at a movie in their store on the new hardware and OS so you know what other services offer it.

I'm guessing Amazon will be removed from this list immediately.

I guess the question is whether those SDKs provide everything Amazon needs. And, are there no legal restrictions that affect Amazon either.

Overall the article just says Prime "doesn't work well" on those devices, but does work well on others. It doesn't say why. At this point it's hard to say who's to blame. It would have been nice if the article had investigated the issue.

The biggest streaming competitor to iTunes in the video space has got to be Netflix. And Netflix as well as HBO, Showtime, and many networks have had apps on iOS for many years, and AppleTV for a couple years (and presumably with the bar limiting the number of AppleTV Apps going away this fall, there will be an explosion of such Apps.)

I don't think you can say Apple is to blame (or Google, though the google situation I can't speak as clearly to because I don't know the technical details there.)

Amazon Instant Video is available on Sony TVs running Android TVs, but Amazon disables the app from working on non-Sony TVs:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/16/amazon-disables-the-...

Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Crunchyroll, etc. all support Chromecast. It would be extremely easy for Amazon to support it, if they wanted to.

Are you saying that the article is wrong when it says that Amazon video worked, but poorly, on non-Sony TVs?

Are we referring to the same article? The Android Police article linked above reports that Amazon blocked users who tried to run the app on non-Sony TVs:

> But now it doesn't work. "License Error" codes have started showing up when running the Instant Video app on the Nexus Player, presumably because someone at Amazon saw that it was running on non-blessed hardware and shut it down.

I meant the original article this entire discussion is about, which says

> Amazon’s streaming service, called Prime Video, doesn’t run easily on its rival’s hardware.

So it does run, at least according to the article. But it's either hard to make it run, or it doesn't work well. Both of those seem to contradict your link. Very puzzling, I guess one of those must be wrong?

Assuming Bloomberg didn't just fudge the phrasing, they were probably referring to how Amazon Video requires the Amazon Appstore to be installed first: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/splash/sd/t/appstore

There are no technical or legal barriers preventing Amazon from supporting iOS and Android devices.

Ok, thanks, I was confused by how they phrased it.

Does the Cast SDK depend on google play services? If so, that's got a pretty spotty technical record on their Fire devices, and I don't think Amazon is allowed to redistribute it anyways. Might be they don't want to implement Chromecast support for every platform except their own.

If it did - how would it work on iOS?

My understanding is that to implement the Cast SDK in an Android or iOS app, one must link a closed source binary.

On Android, it's Google Play Services, while on iOS it's a custom Cast binary that Google provides to developers to link in their apps. Due to this, almost all apps that support Cast are on iOS, Android, or Chrome because closed-source binaries are only distributed for those platforms.

Amazon would have to make special arrangements to include the Cast SDK on Fire OS. I still don't think this excuses them from bringing a proper Amazon Prime Video app with Cast support to iOS and (Google's) Android.

Guessing here, but I suspect Prime Video runs at a thin margin (perhaps at a loss) and is used largely as a gateway for purchasing or renting non-prime video content. Amazon could only sell that content on device by giving Apple a 30% revenue cut, which may be unacceptably high.

Considering that the primary purpose of the Prime video app on the PS3 seems to be to make you think you can stream something, then tell you you have to buy it right before you start watching, I'd say this is likely correct.

The "free" prime streaming seems to just be a marketing tool for getting you into their video-buying app. I'd be surprised if they have much interest in streaming anywhere where they can't push paid videos without having someone else take a cut.

"Google and Apple now both have open SDK's for creating streaming apps for their devices." And with what provisos about selling through those apps? This is not a technical issue. Amazon just doesn't want to give up 30% of GMS (which would be an even higher % of its margins) on digital media.

> And with what provisos about selling through those apps

Chromecast doesn't have any special connection to Google Play. Anyone can cast whatever they want. Amazon Prime Instant Video can already be cast, but the user experience is so bad that you probably don't want to.

Amazon already has Prime Video apps on Android and iOS that would be subject to the same policies yet those apps show no sign of disappearing anytime soon. After this announcement, I have to believe that is only because Amazon does not have a viable alternative smartphone like it does for streaming devices.

I don't think that's the case because Prime Video is on Xbox and Playstation, where they instruct you to go to amazon.com to buy/rent videos. It could work exactly the same way on Apple TV. So why are they not on it?

It must be another reason... But what?

Presumably just like the Prime Video app on iPad & iPhone: you must buy from the website, because buying thru the app requires a nontrivial percentage of revenue (on iOS, 30%) go to the platform provider.

While that's true, you can get around it by just not having a store in your app at all. This is how Amazon's existing iOS Kindle app -- and Instant Video streaming app -- work, and (barring politics on Apple and Google's parts) there's absolutely no reason that they can't make apps for Apple TV and Chromecast that work the same way.

Apple's refusal to even allow links to external stores is petty and obnoxious, but Amazon is essentially playing the same game: if you won't let us play the way we want, we're going to make life difficult for our own customers while clutching our pearls and telling everyone that you made us do it.

But Amazon already doesn't support purchasing in their iOS apps why can't they make an app but do the same on Apple TV?

Google does not take a 30% cut of all content sold through apps on Google Play. On Android, the in-app purchase rule only applies to content that can only be consumed via apps (so not Netflix, Amazon, etc.).

And even on iOS, Amazon still has video apps, they just don't allow you to buy or rent directly within the app: https://itunes.apple.com/app/amazon-video/id545519333

There's nothing stopping Amazon from supporting Apple TV or Chromecast, except itself.

Exactly. To build on your point, take Amazon's kindle app, available for both android and ios. With Apple devices you can't purchase any content within the app, but at least you can read what you've already purchased from Amazon through other means. They could do something similar with Amazon video.

My guess is that this restriction will not apply to the latest Apple TV hardware when it ships.

This move really saddens me. When I left Netscape to work at Amazon one of the things that I was excited about was a quote from Jeff. "Focus on the customer, not competition." It seems they hve forgotten that.

I found it frustrating when I couldn't stream Prime videos to my android phone (is stock android that different from the version on Fire?)

I found it frustrating (but understandable) when they said they wouldn't support Google TV anymore. (Although the 'support' was letting me watch videos in Chrome).

Now this? It seems like they have forgotten completely about the customer and are focusing solely on the competition.

Prime instant video always worked on Android. Amazon just didn't want you to use it because they wanted to sell you a tablet. Or a horribly overpriced clunky phone.

Amazon now lets you use Prime instant video on your Android device, but there's a big catch. You have to manually install it from their site and allow untrusted apps on your phone to do so. And it's not just Prime instant video you're installing, you're installing the full Amazon App Store on your Android device and giving it full permissions to everything on your phone so it can install and update other apps.

This type of behavior is only focused on the competition and a big middle finger to the customer.

And while you can get it running, it doesn't support Chromecast because they want you to buy their own competing product. I can feel the Justice Department's Antitrust Division rumbling from here.

Similarly, the normal buying experience is being compromised by the pushing of Amazon Prime. When you simply buy a product and want it sent to you, you really have to hunt out the small, unbolded text which allows you to do that without paying any subscription, as against a display of advert and button covering about 2/3rds of the screen to sign up to Prime.

I have had an elderly neighbour ask for help after mistakenly signing up for the service, and personally, the experience reminds me of hunting out the real download button on free download websites, in amongst the flash adverts. I've always thought the big advantage of Amazon was its ease of use for casual purchasers, and I can't imagine that level of hassle and uncertainty is appreciated.

Amazon Prime Video works on my Android TV (it's basically the Nexus player built in to the TV). Which one were you talking about? What is Google TV?

A precursor to Android TV: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_TV

> I found it frustrating when I couldn't stream Prime videos to my android phone (is stock android that different from the version on Fire?)

They've fixed that now. There was a time when you couldn't, but eventually the fire crashed badly enough that they started allowing it.

Amazon can absolutely do this (but I think it is a slippery slope, possibly a sign of some bad changes ahead at amazon. They really should be neutral about the products listed on their site) but the reason they gave is kinda ridiculous [1]. I have a hard time believing the enough people don't know the difference between Prime & Netflix to make this a legitimate reason to stop selling Chromecast and Apple TV

[1]: Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime," Amazon said in the e-mail. "It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion.

The should use the competitor's pages as an opportunity to upsell prime-compatible devices. Show a "Prime Video" logo crossed out that you can click on that takes you to a page telling you why Prime is so much better than whatever you're trying to buy.

(I don't know if that gets into legal hot waters or not, but couldn't be worse than actually not selling competing devices.)

If someone wants to buy an Apple TV, chances are they're just going to go to apple.com to do it, and Amazon has lost the chance to turn that customer over.

Or, you know, just implement Chromecast support in their apps. There's SDKs to do so, and netflix, hulu and others have already done so.

Their lack of support for other devices is almost certainly intentional. (I'm surprised at the amount of sway the hardware teams appear to have over the Prime Video app team. Someone very high up is preventing this from happening for strategic reasons.)

"Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime," Amazon said in the e-mail. "It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion."

Then make your damn Video application work with the Nexus Player.

Exactly.

It would be so easy for Amazon to support Chromecast. Instead they're losing me as a Prime customer.

I don't get it.

When my subscription expires, I won't get it anymore, either.

People have raised this issue before, but it hasn't been taken seriously:

If Google can't show its own products ahead of others in the Google search, why can Amazon show its own products ahead of all the other products on its store on its front-page?

Google has dominant marketshare in its industry (search engine), Amazon does not (retail).

IANAL, but probably because Google has more of a monopoly on web search than Amazon does on online shopping.

> Amazon can absolutely do this

May, maybe not. It depends if the FTC views this as an anti-competitive move. See https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

"It is unlawful for a company to monopolize or attempt to monopolize trade, meaning a firm with market power cannot act to maintain or acquire a dominant position by excluding competitors or preventing new entry."

You can still buy Apple TV or Chromecast Directly, from Best Buy/Walmart, etc. etc.

All Amazon did with this is alienate people like me, who just want Prime to work with the 2 Chromecasts I already own. Good reminder that they are more interested in what they want than what I want.

Yep, I thought the same thing - I've referred the article to the UK Competition and Markets Authority, and to the UK Consumers' Association.

They really should be neutral about the products listed on their site) but the reason they gave is kinda ridiculous

Recall that they've also used the power of their catalog to fight publishers with whom they had pricing model disagreements (e.g. Hachette) by disallowing pre-orders of popular upcoming titles from those publishers.

This is a very bad move for Amazon on all levels, i'm pretty sure this will be cancelled and some heads will fly.

I mean :

- They piss their customers

- They piss their merchants, probably killing some businesses along the way

- They instill fear in their potential merchants. I was vaguely thinking about selling stuff on amazon mind you, and worried a bit about being locked in. Well, those fears are much more real now.

- They piss google and apple, obviously. They're competitors of course but it's a bit of a harsh move, in fact it looks like a war declaration.

- They have a very special place as the biggest merchant on the internet, people watch them and some fear for good reason what they could become (like the only e commerce platform on the internet), and what it could mean in term of market manipulation opportunities. Well they just gave those guys lots of cookies.

- They lose sales, obviously

All that for what ? Well that's ... not clear.

This is a unfortunate turn of events. When I worked for Amazon we were a neutral vendor and would sell anything that is legal. There were a number of first amendment right fights as well.

But clearly that era has come to a close.

It came to a close a long time ago. Amazon refuses to sell many legal products, eg caffeine powder and anything with the confederate flag.

There is a difference between refusing to sell things you think are unethical even if you disagree with the reasoning vs. refusing to sell things for baldly anti-competitive reasons

There is a difference, but it's definitely one that can be intentionally conflated if it suits them.

They still sell the current American flag, and we've killed what, over 100K civilians in the middle east in an unnecessary war? I guess fake outrage is necessary to fill the 24 hour news cycle.

It isn't about ethics, it is about appealing to the masses under a very shallow guise of ethics. That might not change your point much, but for me personally, it leaves a more bitter taste in my mouth.

Just in case anyone is interested in caffeine powder (interesting because it sublimates) do yourself a favor and don't order it.

The smallest orders available online are enough to kill an elephant, and you need a $500+ scale to dose it accurately enough to keep a human from overdosing. And while most human overdoses will be uniquely unpleasant but not lethal, there is definitely the potential for a lethal dose if someone puts a tablespoonful into a drink or something.

Pure caffeine is a uniquely bad thing to have around your living quarters. It's basically a poison (because of the difficulty in measuring dosage and small range between useful and dangerous effect), but people feel very comfortable with it, imagine it's safe to eat, and a big enough chunk of people will act macho towards it.

Doesn't seem that crazy to me. One site I looked at sells 300 capsules for $15 and the whole page is littered with clear warnings about overdose. The lethal dose of caffeine seems to be around 5 to 10 grams so you'd have to eat 25 200mg capsules in a short period to get into danger. That doesn't seem any more dangerous than something like tylenol which they do sell.

I think the grandparents warning only applies to pure caffein powder. Essentially pills are (professionally) predosed to be safe, so it shouldn't be a problem.

The danger is with powders, not pills. Dosing powders requires you have a scale that is more accurate than what most people have, and proper technique in weighing it. The best way for most people to get an accurate dosage is to compound the caffeine with some filler and weigh that (cut it, basically).

Honestly, the only reason you should be dealing with powders is if you're making your own 'stack' of nootropics.

Funny story, I use to work for a pharma company, and we had all that kind of stuff in a secure drug lock up area. You had to log stuff out, it was all very organized. We did a lot of contract manufacturing and we'd get large orders and bring in temp workers. We had a guy one day who ended up getting into the pure caffeine powder, the chemist in the lab figured he'd ingested 800 cola's worth of caffeine. Like you said, not going to kill you but we sent him to the hospital any ways. And we decided to only allow regular employees to get into that area :)

800 colas of caffeine is easily enough to kill you. 34mg caffeine/12oz Coca Cola * 800 cans = 27g. LD50 in humans is 150-200mg/kg, so 12-16g for a 80kg adult.

You seem like you are knowledgeable about these things... how do they measure the LD50 in humans?

We kill mice, rats, hamsters, rabbits, and dogs with caffeine, and extrapolate the LD50 from our test data. Animal testing can be really awful.

The alternative is not knowing the LD50 of caffeine for humans.

You're not even remotely correct. A $20 one will work just fine. Caffeine is dosed in the 100+ mg range to 300 mg for the average person.

I agree that caffeine powder isn't worth buying because it tends to come in large sizes and is hard to measure out. I'd recommend caffeine pills/tablets, though. Much easier than brewing some coffee or tea, and you can manage dosages more easily.

Yet they readily sell 5g bags of Yohimbine HCl powder which can cause cardiac problems at 30-50mg.

> you need a $500+ scale to dose it accurately enough

Or you can just get a super small 0.25 cent plastic scoop that amounts to normal dose.

You definitely can't do this, because you don't actually know the density of what you're measuring. Depending on how the caffeine was prepared, it'll be in crystalline flakes or chunks of varying sizes and configurations. Think of it like snow. You can't tell how much water went into a given volume of snow because you don't know if you're dealing with fluffy snow, wet snow, super fine powder snow, etc.

You definitely can. You don't need exactly 200.000 mg of caffeine for it to be 1 serving. Using 2 ~100mg spoonfuls will probably get you 150-250mg of caffeine, which isn't any more or less accurate than brewed coffee, which varies wildly in caffeine content.

Interesting how they are not responding to comments like this demonstrating how wrong they are.

The best way to use bulk caffeine is to dissolve it in water. It's highly soluble and you can easily measure larger volumes of water.

> you need a $500+ scale to dose it accurately enough to keep a human from overdosing.

No you don't. It's not hard at all using milligram scales < $50. I do it all the time with various substances... including caffeine.

It's not that hard to dose out. Mix 10 grams of caffeine into 1L of water to obtain a 1% solution. Mix 100 grams of your primary solution into 1L of water to obtain a 0.1% secondary solution.

Every gram of secondary solution now has a milligram of caffeine. 2 tablespoons of secondary solution is roughly equivalent to a cola.

Legality should not be the bar you hold products to. For example, you don't want to sell products which don't work. You don't want to sell mislabelled products.

Hmm, guess it is also time for a new neutral vendor to rise up? Anyone interested in funding an startup that will provide warehousing and an online marketplace for physical goods in a neutral manor to ultimately benefit consumers and shareholders? We also promise to try to make the search better than amazons. email is in my profile.

A huge part of Amazon's success is that they don't do all of the warehousing. It's quite easy to become a seller on Amazon and ship stuff from your home. That's how they can have such a massive selection of items for sale. Obviously they also have huge warehouses. Good luck competing with them though :)

Which is really what the discussion is about, besides ebay who else competes in this space?

That era is over since 2010 at least.

http://teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related-ero...

Color me cynical, but I don't have the slightest faith in a corporation's fairness and integrity.

Cancel your Amazon Prime, send a signal to Amazon.

There are plenty of retailers with expedited shipping options now, and I've long preferred say, Newegg, over Amazon for technology products.

I'm canceling my Prime. I don't even own a Chromecast, or any iOS devices, but I'm not going to support a company throwing its weight around in this abusive manner, even if it's entirely legal.

(It is not without irony that I write this, because one of the reasons Amazon is doing this is the Apple tax on digital goods, which is why I don't purchase iOS devices for personal use. The idea that Apple should get a 30% cut of everything that flows through an iPhone or iPad is insane to me.)

Newegg's staunch opposition to patent trolls is nice, too: http://blog.newegg.com/newegg-vs-patent-trolls-when-we-win-y...

I will not renew my Prime membership unless this decision is reversed. Though canceling would send a stronger signal.

>There are plenty of retailers with expedited shipping options now

What about cheap/free 2 day shipping for books? Would love to find an Amazon alternative.

This is ridiculous. Google should delist Amazon.com to "avoid customer confusion" when searchers land there and can't buy a chromecast ;)

Their explanation is just insulting.

Google can't do that right now. The DOJ is looking into anti-trust practices.

Even though everyone else should be looked into as well (this is article is a case in point).

> Their explanation is just insulting.

Do they really need to explain their actions here to anyone? They don't owe Apple and Google a spot in their inventory.

Not they do not, but since they did explain their actions then we have the opportunity to cast judgement

Does Google owe Amazon a spot in its search results? Does Apple owe Amazon the right to not be blocked in Safari?

Morally, they do owe an explanation. They're a giant in their market, shutting out competitors with no good reason.

> Do they really need to explain their actions here to anyone?

Well, potentially to the FTC.

Why? Amazon isn't required to carry every product everyone on HN deems important. McDonald's isn't required to carry Pepsi products because someone likes Mountain Dew.

To your follow up: some kind of anti-competitive explanation for why Amazon shouldn't be allow to do this isn't really going to hold any water in this case.

Safari should blank any page for the Amazon video player to "avoid customer confusion" about what works well with Apple products.

This. To be honest, I think the customer confusion they say is coming from the fact that chromecast was a Prime product and therefore had a Prime logo next to it while buying. That could confuse some buyers.

But the sane thing to do would be to remove these players from Prime shipping, not axe them altogether.

This is a trojan horse PR move to expose Apple's longstanding "customer confusion" argument for excluding competitive products (think Amazon MP3 downloads) from the App Store.

If what Apple has been doing for years is legal, so is this, and Apple can't complain without exposing complete hypocrisy.

In my view, Amazon wants to be forced back from this position in a precedent-setting way. This is Jeff Bezos's long-shot attempt to finally tear down the wall of Apple's closed marketplace.

Apple does not comment on a story like this. If people want to buy an Apple TV, they will see that it's not in the Amazon store then likely go to apple.com.

> In my view, Amazon wants to be forced back from this position in a precedent-setting way.

The only way that could happen would be through long, drawn-out antitrust proceedings. Which, I don't think its much of a stretch to propose, no business wants to get in and lose just to set a precedent that could be used later against preexisting practices of their competitors.

Especially, since any such precedent would only be relevant if they could convince public authorities to prosecute their opponent, or if they choose to expend the resources to do so themselves, and in either of those cases they could do that first without the precedent and establish the precedent at the same time as realizing the benefit.

That doesn't make any sense given the way Amazon has treated the Android ecosystem for years now.

This is just the most blatant, anticonsumer attempt they've made so far to forcibly leverage customers into the Fire ecosystem.

Apple doesn't have a monopoly or a market commanding position.

Amazon does.

To whoever downvoted that:

Samsung vs Apple Market share: 2015Q2 21.4% 13.9%

Amazon compared to the next largest online retailers: http://regmedia.co.uk/2013/08/29/amazon_chart.jpg (Selling more than the next 12 competitors combined. By a lot.)

That sounds incredibly petty.

I don't understand. Amazon Music IS on the app store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amazon-music-with-prime-musi...

Is Amazon Music (streaming) the same as Amazon MP3 (selling downloads)?

They refuse to make the Prime Video app available on the Play Store, they refuse to add Chromecast support, and now they refuse to even sell Chromecast because of their own decision to not support it? I've just canceled my Prime subscription and I hope a few others do as well.

I thought the reason the video app wasn't in the Play store was due to them having to give Google a cut of every sale if they did that?

You can shop via an in-app browser within their Kindle app.

That's iOS, not Android. And even on iOS, Amazon has a video app for viewing videos, though you can't buy or rent directly inside the app:

https://itunes.apple.com/app/amazon-video/id545519333

I think you're confusing Google with Apple. The Play Store's policies are much more reasonable, and allow third party payment processors for purchasing digital items that can be consumed outside of the app itself. In fact, here's a third party video store on the Play Store [1], and here's Amazon's own Prime Music app [2].

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.vudu.a... [2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.mp3

You need 2 apps to run Prime Video, which I believe it's just called Amazon Video now.

You need the amazon appstore app, to install it, and you need amazon shopping app installed to run it (have no idea why). It works fine on android once you have installed all the amazon bs, but last time i checked the app wasn't very good on iOS.

Just canceled mine as well. I've been uneasy because of all of the working conditions issues (especially in the warehouses). Kind of appalled with myself that this is what it took for me to act on it.

I just canceled mine as well.

I just canceled mine too. This is absurd.

Well, if I needed a reason not to buy a Fire Stick, here it is.

If you can't sell your product without striking down competitor's products, than clearly your competitors have a better product.

Does anyone here have a Kindle Fire Stick? It seems to already have dual band, has double the memory/ghz of a chromecast and most importantly - does not need a phone or computer to work. It comes with an independent remote control and built in apps to run. Plus, it already has Spotify. I'm wondering why you would get the Chromecast over the Fire Stick.

I have the Fire TV box, not the stick. The availability of apps on it is kind of annoying, and in the early days video playback was really buggy. But the interface is one of the nicest set-top boxes I've personally used. I prefer it to Apple TV and certainly Roku. I haven't tried Chromecast, though.

We use an original generation Fire Stick specifically for Prime streaming (everything else is on Apple TV), and it's an okay product, but Amazon's dual goal to provide free streaming while also driving purchases makes it a flawed product in the same way that Apple Music within iTunes made me pull out my hair. The new generation with voice should be a good improvement (the amazon remote app for smartphones already incorporates it for the original generation of fire sticks).

I always have a phone, tablet or computer within reach, so it's not a problem to have no dedicated remote (one less thing cluttering my living room, actually).

I also use legal-greyarea services like Put.io, which only work on Chromecast because of how open the ecosystem is.

Before this I used a Boxee Box, which I preferred over the competitors because you could load it full of homebrew (including Put.io).

The Chromecast is most-used HDMI device in my house, because it works with everything I use.

actually a lot of people have made the web-analytics-dashboard-for-the-workplace-on-TV using the fire stick. it's fairly open.

https://github.com/amzn/web-app-starter-kit-for-fire-tv

Put.io is such a good service it hurts - it usually takes 60 seconds to go from thinking about watching just about any movie to streaming it on your TV via chromecast. It kind of annoys me that I didn't think of setting something up that was similar.

Put.io's terms are a bit scary for the regular illegal use it's usually advertised for -

'Put.io may disclose specific contact information when we determine that such disclosure is necessary to comply with law, to cooperate with or seek assistance from law enforcement or to protect the interests or safety of Put.io or other visitors to the site or users of the Services. Also, your contact information may be passed on to a third party in the event of a merger, acquisition, consolidation, divestiture, or a bankruptcy of Put.io.'

I have the chromecast and the Fire stick. I love my chromecast, I impuse bought the fire stick when it first came out and was selling for really cheap.

I like the fire stick because my kids can use it (they don't have devices to control the chromecast with). I don't like basically everything else about it:

- poor app selection (everything I've ever wanted to use (except Amazon Prime) works on my Chromecast, the Fire stick is only good for Amazon/Netflix content (there's a few other things out there, but not enough to matter). - poor playback: once it gets going, the fire stick is fine, but when it first starts streaming stuff it tends to stutter. This drives me crazy.

I have the original fire stick. It's fine, nothing great. I prefer stand-alone devices -- using a computer with a chromecast == me doing tech support for the kids all the time. It has ended up being our default netflix client due to the nice not-IR remote.

I have both. The Fire Stick Audio cuts out every other day and the stick has to be reset. It forgot my login once and had to be factory reset. It has yet to play a video without some stuttering/frame drops/minor audio-video sync.

And as for practical reasons: I use my Chromecast when the kids run away with the FireTV remote. It's more convienent to use a phone or tablet than it is to find the remote.

Finally, On my TV at the far side of my house, which is not that far, the FireTV can't see my WiFi. I have my AP mounted in the ceiling (POE cable to my switch), with one wall partially between the AP and the TV. Chromecast connects just fine, the FireTV stick does not.

In my experience, Chromecast is a much better product than the FireTV stick.

I worked at Amazon for a while, and I was in a number of meetings with a number of senior executives, and I heard them ask, "What's better for the customer?". This move makes me think they've gotten out of the habit of asking that question.

It's Amazon's first leadership principle: http://www.amazon.jobs/principles

I think Amazon is hitting the ceiling of what it can achieve - it's no longer following the system that got it so big and they're having to resort to systems like Amazon Flex to still be able to provide delivery on time.

That's all I could think of here. Google and Apple have sufficient brand awareness that those who want to purchase these devices will be able to buy them just fine.

Unfortunately, those who want to purchase them through Amazon or would not have known about them outside of Amazon are now the ones that lose.

Seems very contrary to that leadership principle.

This is gold: "It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion."

Copywriters must have had a laugh coming up with that one.

There will be even greater customer confusion when people are wondering where are the Apple TVs and Chromecasts.

The new AppleTV has an App Store. Does this mean Amazon can't or won't create an app for Prime Video for the AppleTV? (Can't or won't, either answer would be telling.)

If a device comes with a useable app store, I'd rather it not come with tons of bloatware for every service ever out of the box.

At this point it just seems Amazon is touting their weight.

This move is obviously them using their position in the marketplace but I would imagine they would avoid the App Store as Apple takes a significant chunk of every purchase.

Millions of people using the Kindle app on iOS deal with the workaround. You just can't buy within the app.

But, you don't pay for the app, you shouldn't need to pay for the app--much like Netflix. The service is separate.

Your problem is perspective... Amazon Prime video doesn't want to become Netflix. They're more like a loss leader for the non-free purchases... And that's where Amazon makes its money from video.

The new Apple TV hasn't shipped yet, but my guess is that this restriction will not apply to it - it is highly likely Amazon is working on an app for it and will have it available at release time, or shortly thereafter.

The best bit about this is that most devices that they compete with can support Prime Video, they just choose not to release it on those platforms.

Roku devices in the US can use Amazon Prime Video, in the UK we can't.

Edit: Roku was autocompleted to Ross. Fixed.

If a bull ate gold nuggets then crapped them out- yes, this is gold. It's the biggest steaming pile of gold I've ever read.

Surely it's Amazon's fault that Prime Video doesn't work on Chromecast. Amazon would get a lot more of my digital goods dollars if they took a "Kindle" approach to streaming video -- make it available everywhere.

Of course it's their fault, it's their own product?

Odd way to say thanks to Google for providing open source Android OS to build out their platform.

Google didn't really "provide" it. By open sourcing it, anyone can use it, Amazon has no reason to thank them. On the contrary, Google has used the "incompatible" excuse to refuse to let Kindle users have access to Google Apps.

I think Amazon is fighting back with their strength (Amazon.com) against device platforms that use similar tactics but are much larger in the device market.

Whether it's a good idea, that's questionable. Google is violating antitrust law, but by doing this... so is Amazon.

Because Apple will not have difficulty fulfilling orders for its products on the Internet itself, I doubt anyone could claim Amazon is in violation of the rule of reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Ru...

That said, this is only true of companies like Apple, who already have access to favorable terms to resources like UPS, etc. I think the much more important question is whether Amazon will assume this privilege with other companies and markets that will be adversely affected by such policies.

I think Amazon has little to gain in trying to boost its sales by reducing the competition of Apple on its own web site store. What they have to loose is the faith that people have invested in Amazon in being a market creation and fair access vehicle.

If companies cannot help keep the Internet open and available to all, then they're going to have to shut up later when they are riddled with regulations, tort and legal bills. Not to mention the obvious ire of their loyal customers (myself among them).

I sure hope Amazon's web analytics pick up this comment :-) I won't give them the benefit of sending it to them directly. They obviously are more interested in their interests, not my interest in comparing devices directly on their web site.

I would also add, that once Amazon's product teams have protection from the competition, they are going to evolve to be less competitive. Moving to an easier league, never makes a team better :-)

What really, really irks me about this is that Amazon ALREADY HAS an Android TV app. They were (apparently) contractually obligated to Sony to supply it for their TVs, and it works perfectly well on Sony Android TV based Smart TVs. It was possible to sideload this app on other Android TV devices until Amazon put a halt to it.

See http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/16/amazon-disables-the-...

I wonder if Netflix should be scared. The next thing you know, they might ban competing video services from running on aws ...

Well, I also have a Fire Stick I use to watch Netflix and don't have a Prime subscription. I hope they don't make my Fire Stick useless.

If Amazon ever banned competitors from running on AWS it would pretty much be the end of AWS.

"It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion."

What a load of rubbish. They could make it work on those devices but they choose not to.

It's a ploy to get Prime users to buy Fire sticks and nothing more.

I agree.

I bought a Fire Stick and promptly returned it because it is garbage.

This sounds like anti-competitive behavior. Even if legal, as someone who spends literally thousands of dollars a year on their site and have been for over a decade now, this will cause me to look for alternatives. I admired amazon because they were often aggressively pro-customer. But this move will not benefit their customers. They may well wind up destroying the customer loyalty they've built up over the years with this really stupid decision.

> ...look for alternatives.

What kind of serious alternatives are there to Amazon? There is Monoprice and Newegg for electronics and accessories. I just heard about Jet on Planet Money which sounded interesting. Anyone have any general shopping sites they like?

Wouldn't it be great if Google de-indexed links to pages regarding Amazon Prime citing the same reason "in order to avoid customer confusion."?

That would instantly backfire on google.

Amazon isn't a search engine that indexes the web. It's a ecommerce site, and ultimately is allowed to carry the products they want to carry.

This is only specific to Apple & Google video streaming devices, not all Apple & Google products.

By the same logic, Google is a website, and they can publish what they wish.

This is a strange choice by Amazon. It's not at all clear that such a ban is in the interests of Amazon or their customers.

What if Google removed all of Amazon's apps that stream competing content on Google Play store? Then what?

Except they're also a marketplace and they require their vendors to ban the same products.

It's not an ecommerce strategy, they're very clearly using their huge leverage as the #1 ecommerce on the internet to attack their competitors and lure customers into their walled garden.

I'm pretty sure in my country this will be forbidden by antitrust laws.

> I'm pretty sure in my country this will be forbidden by antitrust laws.

On the surface, perhaps.

However from the article, this is in response to seemingly anti-competitive practices by both Apple and Google's strategies regarding Amazon Prime on their TV devices.

Apple and Google are acting like walled gardens, and so Amazon is retaliating. My guess is Amazons desired outcome is Apple and Google support Amazon Prime video Apple TV and Chromecast.

Edit to add: this comment was pulled out of the ether. Disregard.

> However from the article, this is in response to seemingly anti-competitive practices by both Apple and Google's strategies regarding Amazon Prime on their TV devices.

The article doesn't say that at all. The Amazon statement quoted in the article says that the items don't "work well" with Prime Video, but doesn't blame that on "anti-competitive practices" by Apple or Google -- which is good, because the reason it doesn't work on Chromecast, at least, is simply that Amazon has chosen not to implement Chromecast support -- and it doesn't work on Android TV devices, except Sony Smart TVs, because Amazon has actively blocked those devices.

Apple does have generally stronger controls, and it may be that there is an Apple policy issue affecting Prime on Apple TV, but I suspect that that's not the case, and that, as for Chromecast, Apple TV doesn't "work well" with Prime because Amazon has made a decision not to have it work well with Prime.

> My guess is Amazons desired outcome is Apple and Google support Amazon Prime video Apple TV and Chromecast.

If Amazon wants Chromecast to support Amazon Prime, all they have to do is build support for the Chromecast API into Amazon Prime mobile and/or Web apps.

Man, I can't for the life of me figure out where I pulled that idea out of. You're right. Article makes no mention of why.

Nope, Amazon not supporting chromecast is entirely Amazon's business decision, there are no technical reasons for it. Google is not preventing them from supporting Chromecast in any way. Amazon could easily offer if if they wanted to, but they would rather push their own ecosystem instead. I'm pretty sure the situation with Apple TV is similar.

Not at all. There is nothing other than their own stubbornness that prevents Amazon from supporting streaming on the Chromecast. Google doesn't charge for it streaming, there is no "marketplace" from which to take 30%, etc.

They are open APIs that HBO, ESPN, Netflix and hundreds of other companies have integrated with...and Amazon hasn't.

So, as a Canadian, where does this leave me? I have an amazon prime account (on amazon.ca), but I don't have access to Prime Video (because Canada). Are they seriously going to de-list chromecasts on amazon.ca because of the potential "customer confusion" of a service they don't even offer here?

"To avoid customer confusion". That's not even good bullshit.

Let the evilness begin!

Seriously though, isn't this just asking for an anti-trust investigation? Especially in the EU, where it is more focused on competition inhibiting actions.

I was wondering about anti-trust issues too. Seems to be a pretty clear case of using dominance in one area (online shopping) to try and increase dominance in another area (online video streaming).

Has Amazon ever pretended to not be evil?

I think the fact that almost everyone here agrees that this is a mistake, but that Amazon still thinks its a good strategy illustrates a common problem with big organizations that have diversified focuses.

The retail arm of Amazon wants to be the best it can be. That means stocking the best stuff.

The video arm of Amazon wants to be the best it can be. That means getting its content storefront in the homes of as many customers as it possibly can.

The problem is when the two arms have aims that are in conflict. Then one arm tries to drag the other arm towards its interest, and hampers that arm from doing the best it can do.

That's when a single-minded, and focused organization kicks the butt of the arm of the big company.

Yes, there are advantages of scale and cross-selling within big companies. But it seems to me that these days those advantages are far outweighed by these cross-purposed interests hampering product development.

They won't even sell Chromecast or Apple TV? Wow. Now I'm sure they'll never support them for Prime Video. I was really looking forward to watching 'The House of Cars' or whatever the Top Gear trio call their new show. I won't buy a Fire TV for just that show though. It is a real pain in the ass that as a paying prime customer since launch I have to rip videos from their service in order to watch them on my TV.

I disagree with this. If Amazon want to avoid customer confusion, then make the products show a 'Amazon Prime Video Compatibility' notice on the product page.

But where does it stop. Do they start banning gaming devices, tablets, etc? Will music players be next, and e-readers?

It feels like this is Amazon's way to get those vendors to take note and consider and integration, or calling their bluff because they failed in their corporate negotiations to make that work.

Having said that though, I do feel it's unfortunate that to run the Amazon App store on my Android phone I have to leave the phone in an insecure state because Android only officially supports the Google Play Store. It feels like both are battling with each other and doing it in a very public way by harming the consumer experience.

There should be laws that force anyone who owns a platform without any perfect replacements (which includes all two-sided markets) to allow any legal and non-fraudulent content, products, businesses or people on it at non-discriminatory costs.

Amazon should be forced allow selling anything legal, Apple should be forced to allow any legal apps, Facebook should not be allowed to ban people, Paypal should not be allowed to freeze accounts, Google should be forced to allow anyone to use AdSense and allow anyone to advertise on it, Airbnb should be forced to allow anyone to list properties, etc.

Without these laws, our freedom and our ability to participate in the economy is at the mercy of whatever company wins the lottery and becomes the owner of the dominant platform in a niche.

What happens to the freedom of these companies to refuse your business?

As some have said above, things get awkward with gray areas. Would reddit be prevented from banning the many unethical but legal subreddits? I will bite that bullet, but many will not.

This is not a good idea.

Should Amazon be forced to sell Confederate flags if they find them immoral? Curated app stores are a good thing for users. Should Apple be forced to compromise the quality of their user experience because of random laws? And Airbnb being forced to allow anyone to list properties seems like a major safety issue.

There will always be competitors to Amazon, and it's ridiculous to suggest that them not selling something means you're freedom is being compromised. Neither Google nor Apple will suffer from this move, and people can buy those products from other reputable vendors.

Besides, one of the barriers to competing with Amazon was a good payments system, and that has largely been solved in recent years.

Being forced to sell something is quite a bit of moral distance away from being forced to allow anyone to set up a stall in your bazaar, regardless of the products they may be selling from it.

If I wanted to buy a Confederate battle flag, it shouldn't be any more difficult for me to do so than buying a 50-star US stars and stripes flag, or a pirate jolly roger flag, or a UK union jack flag, or a North Korean flag, or a rainbow hippy peace-sign flag. A meta-merchant based out of the US should simply not be able to discriminate based on content, unless it also wishes to assume legal responsibility for those things it does allow to be sold in its marketplace. Someone, somewhere, will want to sell what I want to buy, and it is no more Amazon's place to prevent us from doing business on their general-purpose e-commerce platform than it is AT&T's or Verizon's place to prevent us from talking over their phone networks.

The instant you pull CSA flags from your marketplace, everything else becomes a de facto Amazon-approved product. Like ISIS propaganda magazines. Whoops, better ban that, too. Eventually, it reaches the point where some employee has to decide whether a fill-in-the-blanks legal boilerplate form can be sold by a merchant that is not a licensed attorney in the buyer's state.

Because if Amazon removed some offensive or illegal products, customers may rely on that when shopping, and assume that anything else bought from Amazon must therefore be legal and non-offensive. If Amazon wants to do that, fine. But do it on curated.amazon.com or only.amazon.com rather than the main www.amazon.com site. Maybe I'll go there if I only want to see stuff sold directly by Amazon without having to check that box in the search results every time.

Curated marketplaces are fine, but only so long as there is a free, uncurated alternative. I think Apple should be forced to allow uncurated stores (like Cydia) or curated-by-someone-else stores (perhaps a Google Play for iOS) for those who wish to assume the additional risks posed by such offerings. They are certainly allowed to preload their own store, and make it the default, but if I want to take my property out of the walled garden, they had damned well better unlock the gates and let me leave.

In my opinion, the extent to which the platform is completely neutral is inversely proportional to the responsibility the platform operators have for the things that make use of it. Of course, by this theory, if Silk Road had not policed its black market listings at all, it could not have been shut down for promoting commerce in outlawed goods and services.

> If I wanted to buy a Confederate battle flag, it shouldn't be any more difficult for me to do so than buying a 50-star US stars and stripes flag

Funny you don't make more apt comparisons, like a Waffen SS battle standard, or an ISIL flag.

Cherry picking. Each flag is its own thing, with its own baggage. They are, most of them, devices to convince people do horrible things without feeling personally responsible for doing them.

The French flag now is the same as the flag of the First Republic, and the one that flew over the Reign of Terror. The Turkish flag, as the flag of the Ottoman Empire, flew over the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides. The Soviet flag flew over the genocides of Cossacks, Ukrainians, and Chechens, and the mass deportations of Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians. The 24-star US flag "Old Glory" flew over the Trail of Tears.

If you banned a flag every time something horrible happened under it, all of our flagpoles would be empty, not just the people from the American South. But then, the next time a group wants to come together and do something horrible without bearing a burden of guilt afterward, they will just hoist an all-new flag to shield them from their shame.

Or maybe they will do something great, and share that glory through their shared standard. It has happened, at times. Digging the Suez canal. Digging the Panama canal. Landing on the Moon. Establishing institutions to support the common welfare. Building transcontinental railroads. Universal literacy campaigns. Some of those things were made possible by a manufactured sense of ideological kinship.

Let us not forget that flags are just symbols, and identifying marks, whose meanings are interpreted entirely in the eye of the beholder. The flag that is placed on Memorial Day, on the grave of a man who died under it, may look the same as one that is carried at a white supremacist rally, but only one ought to be offensive to a descendant of Confederate-owned slaves. We do not have a duty to shield others from emotional distress, by attempting to prevent the latter from being sold.

If you ban one flag, you either have to draw a line around acceptable levels of offensiveness that originated under any given flag, or you have to ban them all. Deciding where that line goes is very difficult to do fairly.

You are free to start up your own competing platform if you don't like how one is run. See reddit/voat.

I'm not sure how creating (more) laws that govern how businesses are run will somehow result in more freedom?

And how successful was Voat?

http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centrali...

I don't think the success/failure of that specific venture has anything to do with the argument I made, but ok?

To pick the most offensive analogy possible:

You are free to start up your own competing government if you don't like how one is run.

I'm not sure how creating (more) rights that govern how governments are run will somehow result in more freedom?

We don't need a law. The public backlash from customers (see: this entire thread) is going to be more than enough to get the job done.

If this is the beginning of a trend then I won't be a Prime customer much longer. If they don't sell the products I want, then I don't care if I have free super fast shipping and the value goes out the window. I could care less about their video services. I have Netflix and Hulu, it's been months since I watched something on Prime video.

This reminded me that I'm using Amazon too much lately. Time to give some juice to the competition, for my own future good.

A while back I noticed my last Amazon purchase was in late December 2014. I set a goal of not making a single Amazon purchase in calendar 2015. I'm on track and it hasn't been difficult at all.

The problem is AmazonGlobal. There's extremely little competition in this space. If I order from abroad (I am in Canada) then the courier will charge me a ridiculous amounts of money to process customs (http://www.ups.com/content/ca/en/shipping/cost/zones/customs... twenty percent, easily!). If I order from amazon.com / .de / whatever then at checkout I will pay all the necessary import fees and taxes (very low usually) and no customs processing fees. As far as I am aware, only eBay has a similar Global Shipping program.

I found that by asking the seller to use the USPS instead of a courier company, I could avoid brokerage fees and sometimes even duty/import fees as well. Not all sellers will agree to use USPS, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Canada Post will also charge a fee.

What do you use as alternatives, and for what categories of shopping?

It's case by case. For books I like to go shopping/browsing in physical stores, which is just more fun. And no waiting for shipping.

For video games/movies I follow RSS feeds of some deal monitoring sites and buy wherever I can get a good deal. Sometimes it's Target, or Best Buy, sometimes it's a random online retailer that's legit, but I wouldn't have otherwise considered. It's a competitive business and the same deals pop up in more than one place.

I used to get eye drops and vitamins on Amazon, the everyday price at CVS is higher than Amazon but they regularly go on sale at CVS and I do just as well by just timing the purchase. I'm in CVS all the time anyway.

I haven't made a major purchase like a TV this year but I'm sure I'd do fine if I waited for a specific sale or the general holiday season deals.

And sometimes I just don't buy something at all. I started out not wanting to buy from Amazon because of how they treat their employees and business partners. In the process of rethinking that I also realized I don't need to be buying so much stuff anyway. I used to throw in items so I'd qualify for free shipping on $25 (now $35) orders. Now I buy fewer things, only when I'm sure I'll really use them. Instead of building up a backlog of books I'll get to someday, I buy one when I'm ready to start reading it.

I bought a pair of $8 earphones from Best Buy and got free shipping for it alone, at Amazon it would have been $6 but shipping would have been extra unless I bought more. The cost of Prime amortized to my number of purchases would not be a good shipping rate. (I'm not interested in the other Prime benefits.)

I've found that dropping loyalty to any one retailer gives me the best overall experience and/or the best deals.

Ah, to live in a universe where Sears remembered it was a catalog store in the 90's and realized it could be again because of the web.

This does kinda feel like Amazon jumping the shark, particularly in light of claimed "customer obsession" and and that "Leaders start with the customer and work backwards." (http://www.amazon.jobs/principles)

Amazon needs to do a better job of explaining why they think Apple TV and Chromecast's restrictions are unfair.

Amazon's streaming is pretty good, I certainly wouldn't buy a device that doesn't support Prime Video.

Roku is pretty good, supports everything except Apple streaming AFAIK. One could make a pretty good argument Apple is the one locking people out.

But it might come across as Amazon throwing their weight around to hurt a competitor, which it doesn't even accomplish since there are so many other alternatives to buy those products.

What's stopping Amazon from making Prime work on Chromecast? Even freebie apps in the Play Store stream just fine to Chromecast.

geez, I dunno...that's why they really have to be more clear.

Picture I had was, Apple was a walled garden, you bought Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, it worked on everything but Apple TV.

Seems like it will be a full-fledged shooting platform war now.

Amazon and Google are both ruining Android.

Amazon for apps that arbitrarily only work on their hardware is awful, forcing customers to buy multiple devices (no Amazon Video on the Nexus Player). Google for not making the play store installable on non-Google approved hardware. At least the Amazon app store is made available as a download from Amazon even if Amazon Video won't work on your device.

You've got it backwards on Google Play. If Google had taken a bit of a stronger arm in the beginning, we wouldn't have the fragmentation and shitty experience (Huawei's crap UI, Samsung's crap UI, etc.) that we have today. Google's slowly trying to clean it up, and perhaps the few-restrictions early play was a Trojan Horse. But opening Android up now would certainly be a mistake as it'd only further encourage OEMs to screw it up.

Look at Microsoft and how much they suffered at the hands of terrible OEMs.

Look, if you want an iPhone, just buy one. You're describing their business model exactly.

Having a walled garden is great up until the point they start making decisions you don't like. And usually by that point you don't have any control to stop them.

The idealists here call it a mistake, violating various capitalist principles. The clever argument against Amazon is that they are betraying that they think their product is weak, and can't stand competition.

The deeper, more pragmatic issue is that this is a browser war. The browsers are weird because they are TV dongles. Some hardware manufacturers want to give us browsers that only work for some sites.

I pay Netflix $20/mo to synchronize some of their streams into my brain, through a complicated path involving a world-wide internet, LEDs, and my eye-balls. Why does the hardware path through which those bits flow have to matter? Netflix, Prime, HBO, Comedy Central - aren't all of these just sources of those stream?

My question is whether all of this is because Prime won't support certain hardware paths, or because certain hardware won't support Prime. (Given what I know about Chromecast, I'd say it's the former).

The best way to increase usage of their video streaming would be to make the interface suck less.

Finding shows and videos is a pain in the ass, and it's very difficult to find shows and there's no way to find shows or movies that I've previously watched, even if I didn't finish them.

I've been working my way through all of the Twilight Zone episodes, and even after completely watching seasons 1, 2, 3, and half of season 5, it still doesn't show up as suggested for me or anything. I have to search for it every single night, and the shows don't even show up in the top results, I have to scroll half way down the page to find it.

And then a lot of shows are missing a random season or two. The Twilight Zone is missing season 4, for example.

I only use it because I already have prime and don't watch enough to pay for Netflix. If I had to pay, I'd use something else.

Didn't expect this. It sets a wrong precedent and bad signal to Amazon partners. Let us say I have a software product in aws marketplace that competes with one of their core aws offerings successfully will they kick me out?

This action doesn't give much confidence they won't do that

That sound you're hearing is DOJ lawyers clearing their calendars for the rest of the year. They're going to have some work to do.

Why is it when Apple does this to an app for the same reasons, it's ok?

I suspect their announcement was a copy/paste of Apple's Kindle app rejection on the app store (when it included the option to buy books).

Did Apple ever reject the Kindle app? They rejected Sony's app; from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/technology/01apple.html?_r...:

“We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines,” Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, said Tuesday. “We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase.”

So not a copy/paste of that, either.

Amazon pulled the kindle app's ability to purchase books, because to continue to do so they would have had to pay Apple the standard 30% cut. Amazon did not want to pay that. So they chose to instead to remove the ability for customers to purchase books inside the app.

What are they thinking? Surely this must do more damage to seller goodwill than any supposed customer benefit?

I don't know.

You have to cast your lot with one of the 3 when you start leasing digital material. I went with Amazon for the belief they would be neutral when it came to hardware. Over the last year they have chosen to be protective.

I won't cancel prime since I enjoy the benefits, but it is a pita. What it really comes down to is less digitial video leased for me.

Perhaps AMZN being a single company that provides a retail store and provides video streaming and provides hardware designs and provides software isn't in the best interest of the public.

Is Apple going to refuse to let Amazon publish a Prime Video app on the new Apple TV? That's what they seem to be implying by saying a device doesn't "support" it.

It's not only about non-prime-customers either. I am a prime customer, but I don't use the video streaming, because amazon is a retailer for me. I go there to buy stuff and I use prime to buy stuff cheaper (and more). It's bad enough that they actually force me to buy the video streaming if I want the cheap and convenient buying (which, incidentally, is such a turnoff, that I won't be a prime customer in the future which will pretty much kill my amazon buying habbit).

This.

I'd gladly pay for a Prime product that was $10/mo cheaper and didn't include streaming. I never use Prime Video Streaming (precisely because Amazon won't enable streaming to Chromecast).

Congratulations, you fucked up. A lot.

What is Amazon built on? How does it work? Oh, you think it's built on web services running on cloud architecture. On fulfillment centers, supply chains, and all of that jazz. But that's only half of the equation, the other half is customer loyalty. Customers are loyal because Amazon is, in turn, loyal to them. Returns are mostly painless. Most problems are handled quickly with the customer feeling satisfied they've been taken care of. And Amazon has the best selection of stuff at the best prices and the smoothest transition from exchanging money for a product to having that product in your hands a short time later.

That customer-company bond is what keeps Amazon humming. And Amazon works hard, damned hard, to maintain it. They continually refine the fulfillment, ordering, and delivery process to make it easier, more reliable, friendlier, and faster. That's a multi-billion dollar investment, and it keeps people using amazon even though there are tons of other ways to buy the same stuff.

And yet here you have part of Amazon making the spectacularly poor choice to abuse and tear down that relationship for the tiniest and most dubious of returns. It would be so easy for Amazon to turn into a typical customer-hating corporation, there are so many opportunities for it. But any advantage that seems to buy in the short-term is going to be pissed away by a diminished view of Amazon in the eyes of customers.

I've been an Amazon customer since 1996, and I'm seriously considering cancelling my prime account because of this bullshit.

Isn't this anti-competitive?

I thought anti-competitive would be Amazon selling its fire tv stick at a loss for a period of time long enough to force competitors to drop out of the market. Surely what they want to sell in their store should only be up to them?

That would be one form of anti-competitive behavior.

Using one's market dominance in one field in order to defeat competitors in another field is also sometimes considered anti-competitive, though of course subject to a lot of considerations (e.g., how big your dominance is and what the behavior is specifically).

This is precisely how MS got nailed in the 90s - they were using their dominance of OSes to spread IE and prevent the spread of competing browsers (well, Netscape at the time).

Amazon isn't quite a monopoly like MS was in the 90s, but they're large enough that maybe it matters.

Both are. Legally I believe Amazon is allowed to discriminate against competitors products as long as they're not a monopoly or using their dominant position in the "online-store market" to squash competition in the "online video-market". I'm not sure of the exact definition, but in the EU at least Google has gotten in hot-waters before over something similar.

Generally speaking, you are being anticompetitive if you're strong-arming the competition out of the market as opposed to challenging them based on the relative quality of your product. But at what point exactly it becomes illegal I wouldn't know.

To you and me though, it does kind of sound like Amazon is using their dominant position in the "online-store market" to squash competition in the "online video market", doesn't it? To me, it sounds like that's exactly what they are doing.

Whether it seems that way to the FTC or to a lawyer who understands the relevant laws is another question.

You would _think_ Amazon would run this by their lawyers first.... and do it only if their lawyers thought they could get away with it? I dunno.

Yeah, as I said I don't know the exact border of legality. I wouldn't be surprised if: a) This would only be an issue in the EU, and Amazon is sticking to blocking on .com. b) The wording of the law is intentionally vague ("Such that a reasonable person would expect..." etc.) and Amazon believes to either be in the clear or that at least the risk/reward is good enough.

To name another example of "kinda maybe I'm not sure"-legality. Supermarket home-brands. I remember a few years a go here in the Netherlands there was a price war going on between supermarkets and the producers were caught in the middle, and as a result of ever-dropping prices they did start to complain that it was anti-competitive to allow supermarkets to also be producers as in an ideal market it would be impossible for the producers to offer the same price-point for the same products. I don't believe it went anywhere, but I do feel they kinda have a point. Although I wouldn't be for banning supermarkets from having their own brand (not that it would really be possible anyway, given modern corporate structures).

Is amazon prime not working on Apple TV anti-competitive?

Agreed. Apple not allowing Amazon Prime on the Apple TV was far more anti-competitive. That should end when the new Apple TV comes out though.

Sure, but you're allowed to be anti-competitive as long you're not in a monopoly position in the marketplace.

In the US. I'm not sure that's true in the EU.

You don't have to have a literal monopoly afaiui, I think leveraging a strong market position in one area to benefit a different market can still apply. Not a lawyer though.

No. The only requirement is a "dominant" player. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices

This is the reason why Microsoft and Google have both been investigated for anti-competitive behavior even though neither one of them was a monopoly.

The Sherman Act prohibits using a dominant position in one area as leverage to exclude competitors in the same or different area.

In other words, a dominant player has to play (more than) fair in any new markets.

I say "more than" because if Amazon was not so dominate in ecommerce this behavior would be perfectly fine.

> Sure, but you're allowed to be anti-competitive as long you're not in a monopoly position in the marketplace.

An antitrust "monopoly" is defined by market/pricing power. I wouldn't be all that confident that Amazon's online retail operation wouldn't be found to have such power.

Yes. They're going to get sued.

The Apple Store doesn't sell Amazon devices, does that make the Apple Store anti-competitive?

Probably not. Apple Stores are in business to sell Apple products, always have been. Amazon sells everything, always has. So that's one point. Also, we don't know that Apple would not carry FireTV if Amazon solicited for space in Apple's retail store the same as any other 3rd party vendor.

I don't necessarily think this is anticompetitive on the part of Amazon, either. I DO think it's a cheap shot, and alienates me as a decade-long customer of Amazon.

Amazon only sold books originally, and they still don't sell "everything"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com#History

> Since June 19, 2000, Amazon's logotype has featured a curved arrow leading from A to Z, representing that the company carries every product from A to Z, with the arrow shaped like a smile.

How is this different from suing Apple for not selling Chromecasts in Apple stores?

Because Apple stores don't hold a significant share of the retail market and Apple stores have never sold Chromecasts and aren't expected to sell them, Amazon on the other hand did sell them and is expected to sell them. If Amazon was an Amazon-product-only type store, this would be viewed very differently. This is blatantly anti-competitive behavior, the equivalent of Google de-indexing Spotify to "prevent confusion" with their Google Music product.

I'll bet that this decision will be either quickly reversed, if not, they can expect retaliation from Google/Apple in the form of lawsuits and/or their own versions of this rule.

Probably not anymore.

Their claim of customer confusion would have been bunk because their fire phone used to support prime on chromecast. Now that the fire phone is no longer being produced, they can say that prime is not available on chromecast and it's "confusing" for customers.

At least, I think that's how their lawyers probably green lighted it, seeing as their the online retail market leader.

So there goes my hopes of a Amazon Instant Video app for the new Apple TV. Not that my hopes were too high, but it would've simplified my cable cutting to reduce down to a single device. With native apps and AirPlay mirroring, the new Apple TV was set to be my family's single set top box, but we have a number of kid movies and shows on Amazon Instant Video, and last I checked, there's no support for AirPlay there, so I guess I'm going to have "lose" those kid's movies I licensed on Amazon.

I'm really not getting this - unless they have numbers to back up that their FireTV is in more households than ChromeCast (I don't know anyone non-technical who has one, so that's not tough) AND Apple TV (many of my non-technical friends have one), I don't see the point in this. Why not just release the instant video app for Apple TV, or support mirroring via AirPlay and whatever the name is for Android's mirroring nowadays, and be done with it?

Edit: removed Apple logo glyphs - it was an autocorrect shortcut I had on my phone.

I figured it out via Google, but, as an FYI, that glyph looks nothing like an Apple logo on my device.

Is this a new trend, using the emoji instead of spelling out "apple"? (It's just rendering as square-box TV in chrome on windows, which is really ironic given the subject of discussion.)

Off topic: Can we use the word 'Apple' instead of the logo? It creates a visual distraction.

The largest reason this is a bad idea for Amazon is that right now is an important time for the "competition of the walled gardens" - I don't expect any of Apple, Google, or Amazon to do a winner take all, but someone is going to end up winning most of this pie.

I am a tech nut, and have been since I first got to try programming a computer in the early 1960s. However I am getting tired of too much tech diversity. I have my Music collection on three different services (Amazon cloud, Google music, and Apple). Amazon cloud has the widest coverage over my devices, but I could see myself in the future choosing one vendor. I also subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Go. Three walled gardens is getting to be tedious.

I have had my issues with Apple in the past, but Apple probably has the best shot of providing most everything that I need sometme in the future. Right now, Siri is far beyond Google Now as an AI assistant but that may change. Amazon Echo's Alexa is pretty good, but a really narrow context.

Stuff like not carrying rival's products is probably a bad move.

I'm getting mixed messages here. Amazon won't sell these devices because they don't allow Prime video streaming. Meanwhile, Amazon disabled Prime instant video on the Google TV, even though it's been working for several years. Do they want these devices to support Prime Instant Video or not?

Ironically, Netflix is running on AWS.

For now.

I think this is a bit like Apple using Samsung SoCs. The consumer-facing parts of the business hate each other; the B2B units have a more reasonable view of each other.

The branding here is awful, there exists confusion on the part of the public, the press, the commentators here, and even the executives from Amazon. Isn't their streaming video service called "Amazon Instant Video"? Isn't Prime simply a feature whereby a tiny fragment of their video catalog is provided at no additional charge to Prime subscribers? Isn't the entire rest of the catalog available on a pay-per-view or purchase basis?

Everybody here is saying "Prime Video" but I can't imagine that's a major revenue stream for Amazon or a major source of entertainment for anyone else. If you only watched what's available to Prime subscribers you'd run out of things worth watching fairly quickly.

Wow, who was the genius that came up with this idea? I was literally just talking about how annoying it is that prime video doesn't work with chromecast. Is breaking my habit of checking amazon first when ordering online really worth propping up prime video?

Remember, this is Amazon. A PR machine whose primary product is their stock. The Amazon web store is almost an afterthought.

I will bet that in a year these devices will be on sale there. (Amazon's going to give up selling the iPhone? Yeah right!)

This is just PR generated clickbait.

You know, it's kind of worth noting that Amazon's not the only culprit for this kind of behavior. Unlike Android, you can't buy a book through the iOS Kindle app because Apple has banned apps that directly compete with its own services.

That's not correct. Apple doesn't allowing purchasing digital goods through a non-apple payment method. The margins are so low for Amazon it doesn't make sense to give apple 30% for every kindle book purchased.

Also canceling my Prime membership. I would hope this comes to the eyes of the antitrust bureau as well as it seems like a fairly strong case. If Google de-listed Amazon from their results for having a competing product it would be huge news.

I bought several cheaper Apple products, including an Apple TV, on Amazon because of my Prime membership. While the user experience is not the best for these products (especially the higher end laptops; how often is NEWEST VERSION updated?), it provides a way for Amazon customers to quickly purchase Apple products with a stored CC and take advantage of their Prime two day shipping. I am not going to boycott Amazon because of this, but it does make me question Amazon's leadership and decision-making. Now I think of them as the one stop shop for everything except for Apple products. Adding exceptions for products like this is a slippery slope.

I find this interesting considering I wanted to stream amazon instant video on my android devices... but you can't do that unless you buy one of their kindle/fire android devices or something iOS. Not sure if that has since changed these days, I eventually got tired of waiting and moved on to other services that weren't held hostage to devices I didn't want. I would have thought this is a great lesson about bad decisions. Killing the strongest components of Amazon for the weakest. Somewhat concerning strategy if you ask me. Guess I'll start buying more things from google and apple stores.

As an expat living in Greece, I frequently shop on the German Amazon site, where Amazon's Fire TV and Stick are pretty much destroying all competition, excluding perhaps Roku. However being from a different EU country, I can order neither Roku nor Prime. Not a huge problem for me since I'm 100% YouTube, but both Roku and Prime devices seem to have superior YouTube leanback performance over Chromecast (tried) and pretty much any Android TV box (didn't try). I'm currently waiting for my Nexus Player to arrive, I guess I've ordered it just in time.

I didn't understand prime video. I tried to watch a movie when i had prime, following their link for the "free videos!"

Only to find that it was 5 bucks for every stream or something. Ok. Searched out ghostbusters or something older, guess what? $5. Also no way to sort by free for prime, at least not then.

Don't have prime anymore, and these days amazon is around 10-15% more than what you can easily google elsewhere. Miss the shipping priority though, but as soon as you drop prime, expect them to wait 7 days before bothering to package your stuff and ship it out.

This definitely seems like a bad move, and not very customer-centric. It reminds me of when they disabled the download of any mobile browser alternatives in the 2nd-Generation Kindle Fire in order to push their Silk browser (which itself was terrible nearly to the point of being unusable). This is not to say that Amazon Instant Video is not a great service. It's pretty awesome IMO. But forcing people who want alternatives to seek them out elsewhere will just inconvenience them and drive them away from amazon.com.

If you're a Prime customer, this would be a good time to leave them feedback and let them know what you think about this policy:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/contact-us?

I understand Amazon not wanting to sell competing products themselves, but preventing Marketplace sellers from selling them goes over the line. Amazon shouldn't dictate which (legal) products that Marketplace sellers sell.

Thanks for the link. I emailed them making it very clear that I'd be a non-renewal and taking every penny of the several thousand dollars per year I normally spend with Amazon elsewhere if they stay the course on this one.

"Video-streaming devices" is very broad, and it shows how silly this decision is. Same argument can be applied to computers of any kind (tablets, laptops, desktops).

Note to self: Stallman's fatwas are always right

https://www.stallman.org/amazon.html

"It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion."

It's a good thing my main man Jeff B has my back, otherwise God only knows what kind of confusion would ensue.

Update: sorry for redundantly making a point that a half-dozen others have already made on this thread....but really, this is just epic shamelessness. I mean, this is like Microsoft-in-the-mid-90's-level shamelessness.

After reading Bezos' biography a few weeks ago, this sounds like something that he would never, ever do. Amazon is the everything store. What's going on?

I'm happy that I went with Roku.

I think that this is an underhanded move on Amazon's part but it's not beneath what Apple or Google would do in their position.

>it's not beneath what Apple or Google would do in their position.

Explain.

Based on their previous behavior in the marketplace, Apple and Google aren't above refusing to sell something they once sold if it's not in their own best interests to continue selling it.

Is that even legal in the EU? Isn't that the same behaviour that got Google into trouble, allegedly putting their own products in front of others?

Amazon has flexed its muscle in a similar way with its selling of books -- it temporarily made it difficult or impossible to purchase books from Hachette on its website.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/amazon-escalates-it...

Have to love Gruber's snarky take on it: "LOOKS LIKE IT’S TIME FOR THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE TO INVESTIGATE APPLE AGAIN"

Google and Apple don't sell Amazon devices on their stores, so I guess Amazon wants to take away that advantage from its competitors.

People overestimate Amazon's dominance. Amazon is only dominant in internet retail. In the wider retail world they're quite small. Rounded maths, Amazon is only about 5.4% of US retail sales, and that is only including the top 10.

source: https://nrf.com/2015/top100-table

Bye, bye Amazon.

First the rabbit hole of going to war with UPS to launch various harebrained schemes for delivery. Now picking stupid fights and annoying customers over something with marginal impact to the business.

Amazon is easily replaceable, Netflix, Google and Apple, not so much.

My guess is that the corporate numbers aren't doing good as they've started ratcheting prices up, and this is a smokescreen.

Does that mean that it is Google and Apple that don't want to implement Amazon Prime on their devices? and not the other way around

You should read the article to find out!

"Amazon probably wants to teach Apple and Google a lesson about not making their devices more compatible," Grunes said.

(Allen Grunes, a lawyer at Konkurrenz Group in Washington)

Kind of a sad move, I understand how someone might be convinced it was the right one based on near term goals but longer term it will bite them.

I have a Prime account because I order a lot of stuff for business, and that wins on shipping cost. But Prime Video wasn't ever really the motivator.

Its another part of the Amazon strategy that is opaque to me.

This seems like a violation of anti-trust laws

Interesting. So lets think this through. If they want to make money on prime and streaming, selling competitors products that offer this should be no problem. Yet THEY refuse to put PrimeVideo on chromecast.

Seems like they are more interested in keeping their current customers of competitors platforms, than expanding their reach.

Seems dumb to me.

Is there a reason why Prime Video doesn't work on Chromecast and Apple TV? If I were trying out Prime Video, the first thing I'd be doing is trying to make it work with my Chromecast. If I find out I need to buy another Chromecast-like device to make it work, that would work against Prime Video.

They already have apps for iOS. I can only assume this is about the 30% cut that Apple takes for in-app digital purchases. While it doesn't matter for Prime videos, it matters for Amazon Instant Video sales and Rentals. On iOS they can nudge users over to Safari to buy. No such option on Apple TV.

Aww, I was hoping more people here would defend the move. (I really enjoy watching people do mental gymnastics.)

I think they are just attracting bad publicity with this. I don't know about Google's product, but when I want an Apple product I always go directly to the Apple store. So the fact that they don't carry Apple TV makes no difference whatsoever in my desire to buy an Apple TV.

I spent a few minutes scanning news articles about this alleged memo. It appears that it was leaked to some news organization (Bloomberg?) by an anonymous source. I think I'll wait for the NYT to determine if the memo is accurate before I get all hot and bothered about it.

Amazon, don't buy the hand that feeds you. If Google or Apple do something like that against you, you're done.

We on the other hand have many many many many many other places to buy stuff online... Too many if anything. Amazon is my favorite but I wouldn't sweat it to buy elsewhere.

Has this feature now been removed: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/17/4740080/amazon-instant-vid...

Yet another reason to shop at Newegg.

"by ending the sale of devices from Google Inc. and Apple Inc. that aren’t easily compatible with Amazon’s video service."

I predict they'll make it easier soon. Amazon is pulling an "easier to ask forgiveness than permission" approach to negotiations.

> I predict they'll make it easier soon.

Aside from "Amazon said it in a press release", is there any reason to think that these services really aren't "easily compatible with Amazon's video service"?

I mean, lots of other video services support Chromecast and AppleTV, and I haven't heard of it being particularly difficult.

This hurts Google, but not Apple. Why ever order Apple device from Amazon.com? Seems very risky.

Confederate flag, Apple and Google are all in the same bucket according to Amazon now. Nice.

Wouldn't a great solution to Amazon's "problem" with Prime Video not being available on other platforms be to allow users of Prime Video to access it on those other platforms?

I can't imagine they're making much on the hardware...

I wonder when they'll use that AWS stronghold they have to do similar things in that industry. But that's okay, keep putting all your eggs in their proprietary tech. It just means I'll have a job when that day comes.

Use standard technologies and no DRM garbage, and all devices will work with all services. But of course, some seem to never learn (i.e. video industry) and even try to use different feudal lock-ins for their dirty tactics.

First thing in a while I have been disappointed in from Amazon. Pretty crappy move.

I've been increasingly disappointed over the past year or two.

Having been an Amazon customer since 1997 ( back when they still accepted cheques mailed-in for orders ) within the past couple of years they have fallen to my retailer-of-last-resort position.

Many of the items we used to order are now add-ons that don't even qualify for free delivery if bought in bulk.

Their website is now a constant hard-push for Prime. Products are pushed to secondary positions so that they can shove Prime banners in my face. I have to double-check every checkbox to make sure I'm not signing-up for a 'free' trial of Prime.

If they want to push Prime so hard, just switch to being a Prime-members-only site.

This seems really short-sighted to me. Amazon is going to punish their own customers because of a feud they have with their competitors? How is that good?

More and more I question whether I want to continue doing business with Amazon.

I just want to recommend Alpha House [0], a political comedy about Republican senators created by Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) with lots of great cameos. Its original/exclusive content and the kind of thing that might help Amazon, unlike this dumb maneuver.

YouTube has a trailer (irony?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iXYgtIYCTg

Bill (fucking) Murray does guest bits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa4jvMBjC8M

[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00CDBTVM2

Fuck you, Amazon. I guess it's time to start online shopping elsewhere.

It's been awhile since the last big anti-trust trial. Get the popcorn!

I heard next they are trying out a mandatory Web Application Firewall on AWS that will shield their customers from exposing potentially malicious websites offering non-Amazon streaming devices...

The other streaming devices won't go away. It will be a nice boost for Best Buy and other brick and mortar stores. While people are there, they can up sale on cables and stuff.

I don't use Prime, because it does not work on my Chromecast.

If I were Google I would offer all customers a free license to any Amazon movies the customer already owns. A Mass exodus from Amazon to Google would subsequently ensue.

Amazon, Amazon, who's making all these bad decisions over there?

Edit:

There must be something about that company's culture that causes this to happen which would be baffling to outsiders.

FTC will ruin them, thankfully.

This would be a horrible commercial decision anyway.

It's about as stupid as Google shitifying all of their services to push the (ultimately unsuccessful) G+.

Wonder if they'll try to pull this off on Amazon.ca and other geos, where they have not bothered to roll out their own streaming video service.

What are some good Amazon Prime (shopping) alternatives? Yearly fee for low cost or free fast shipping, with an inventory of pretty much everything?

https://www.shoprunner.com/ provides free 2 day shipping from a number of merchants (including NewEgg), and is free for American Express cardholders, otherwise it's $79/year.

From what I understand, Newegg has a kinda similar thing (Newegg Premier or something).

Edit: found the link http://www.newegg.com/neweggpremier

If they just put some effort into their streaming user experience, they wouldn't have to resort to these sort of tactics. Sad.

Google and Apple should pull the Amazon Video app from their app stores. That would settle this in about 30 minutes...

Amazon Video is not available in the Android Market -- you have to install Amazon's App Store App to install it, which is pretty obnoxious.

Hubris. There are other channels and consumers will surely find them.

And -- oops -- waddaya know, my kindle app just crashed :)

Sounds like an anti-competitive move. Cue the google/apple lawsuits and FTC investigation in 3, 2, ......

So will they also force Apple and Google to sell FireTV on their stores? Amazon tries to look like the place where you can buy literally everything... but they aren't legally obligated to sell anything.

Apple and Google aren't dominant in ecommerce the way Amazon is.

The rules are different if a company is considered dominant in its market sector.

Yeah, but Google's being investigated by the FTC for how they restrict usage of Google Apps. The primary aggrieved party there is Amazon, who's been unable to offer the Play Store on their Kindle devices.

Google should want to make this fight go away without the FTC, because it shines a light on Google's own misdeeds.

To be fair...Google and Apple are doing the same thing to Amazon (shutting out a competitor). Tivo and Roku both offer PrimeTV and both are sold thru Amazon. So the theory that this is soley to block out competitors is demonstrably false. Business is business and Amazon is biting back. Shouting "boycott" seems extreme and won't have an affect on their bottomline anyways.

I don't think you understand. Amazon doesn't want to do this, but Google and Apple are leaving them little choice b/c they are undermining Prime service on their devices. And this is not the only place where this is happening. Have you tried to use the YouTube app on Roku? It is all but unusable. Why? B/c Google wants to control everything.

The only reason I didn't sign up for prime was the inability to Chromecast.

Could Amazon similarly ban certain competitors from using EC2? Like Netflix...

I don't like this one bit. I've cancelled my Prime membership on principle...

I have some way to go, but gradually I'm working to stop giving energy to organisations that don't align with my values... even if it makes my life marginally less convenient.

Can never trust a company with similar competing products.

Anti Trust. Corporate censorship.

Bloomberg's title seems a little baity. The article states, "... its marketplace sellers that it will stop selling Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast."

So "the everything store" will stop selling their competitors products? Not exactly earth-shattering.

After considering a Chromecast and an Apple TV I went with Roku because the main services I want are Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. If Apple and Google are playing hardball against Amazon video this move only makes sense in a tit for tat battle.

Apple and Google aren't doing anything, Amazon aren't making their services available on those platforms.

How do get Apple and Google as the ones playing hardball here? Amazon is the aggressor here not Apple or Google.

How come Amazon video isn't available on Apple TV or Chromecast?

because amazon video doesn't support them?

> How come Amazon video isn't available on Apple TV or Chromecast?

In the case of Chromecast, because Amazon hasn't built an app that uses the Chromecast API, because -- the same as the move here -- Amazon wants to use its position to promote and sell its own hardware that competes with Chromecast.

Its not like Google prevents Amazon from using the Chromecast SDK the same as anyone else.

If Amazon is the aggressor, why isn't Play Movies or the Chromecast app available on the Amazon Appstore? Surely Amazon would've liked Kindles to work with Chromecast.

I think you're missing the reason for this fight.

It's easy to paint Amazon as the bad actor here...and, they are. But, I think Google and Apple are also bad actors in this situation. The reason Google and Apple TV devices have a bad Amazon Prime experience, I suspect, is because they want a huge cut of revenue from Amazon Prime viewership (just as they expect a huge cut of revenue for anything sold on their platform), and they aren't being reasonable about getting it. The notion that these services can be profitable, can pay creators a reasonable amount, and can be offered at a fair price to consumers, while also paying massive rents to the platform owners is questionable, at best. If your margins are razor thin, having a company demand 30% for that last mile to the customer is probably not sustainable.

Amazon is not faultless, but it is bad actors all around in this situation. Somebody needs to break the 30% model. I don't think this move from Amazon will do it for the industry as a whole (though Apple and Google might work on a compromise specifically with Amazon), but I understand entirely why they're doing it. They're facing off against the biggest bullies in the world, who are demanding Amazon's lunch money in the media market (not that Amazon is treating anyone that much better on their own platform).

Nope. Incorrect. Google and Apple both have open SDKs for streaming to their devices. Amazon has chosen not to support them

Ah, then Amazon is just being an ass.

The 30% revenue share is only for purchasing content that is discovered & purchased on Apple devices. Amazon Prime subscribers pay Amazon directly through the website, and would not be subject to that revenue share.

For non-Prime Instant Video purchases/rentals, users could purchase through the website and have content made available through the app. This is how Amazon Kindle currently works on iOS.

Chromecast's APIs are open. I stream HBOGo to it, ESPN, Netflix...none of them pay any money to Google.

Amazon could add streaming to their players as easily as those companies did.

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