Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show | Hacker News Reader

Google Is Pulling YouTube Off the Fire TV and Echo Show

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83 pointsartsandsci109 comments

You know what, good for Google. I hate to sound like a child, but Amazon fired the first salvo by dropping the Chromecast a few years back. This move only seems fair.

Amazon removing the Chromecast from their store was, if anything, verification at the Fire TV was not a product that could succeed on its own.

I love my Chromecast and I buy new models directly from Google, because no matter what Amazon says I know the difference between Google's product, and Amazon's copycat version of it.

Well, for me at least, amazon's copycat worked first time out of the box. Chromecast, alas, turned out to be an expensive plastic brick.

thank goodness that samsung TV's can play from both sources

Until one of them falls out with Samsung, presumably?

pretty much, but since samsung doesnt enter the space of these competitors, it would be silly to have a falling out. Samsung doesnt offer too many competing products with amzn /goog

What issues did you encounter? And how can you call a $35 device "expensive"?

My brother took his to uni and couldn't log into the Wifi - I assume he has to enter uni credentials for it and the Chromecast doesn't support that Wifi authentication model.

Authentication is one issue. The biggest is the fact that UPnP is disabled on many university networks. Chromecast relies on UPnP for device discovery.

For setup, it need to be on the same subnet as the device you're using to register it. Most university networks are split into many subnets making this extremely difficult to do, and use after registration. The best workaround is using a router as a middle man for the phone and chromecast, but it's a pain.

I have a chromecast, but gave up on making it work in university.

As a partial aside, I'm going to gloat about how incredible my alma mater's networking infrastructure and usability is.

Tell me how long it takes you to find explicit instructions on connecting a chromecast from this site[1]. I think most schools are just incredibly bad at managing their network infrastructure, and its really sad.

[1]: http://www.wrecktechs.gatech.edu/

He probably needs to register the mac address with the university dhcp service so that it can get a routable IP address.

University networks used to be pretty wide open but the days where you could just plug into any available Ethernet socket or hop on the wifi anonymously are gone.

We may have a winner here. Universities tend to use this network access control services that block random mac's from connecting.

For mine the Wifi was always gated but ethernet ports were open.

All the sibling posts are interesting – but ultimately wrong.

The Chromecast (or at least when I last tried it) doesn’t support WPA Enterprise, so it can’t use the user/password or user/certificate authentication required by university networks.

This is purely an issue with the Chromecast.

$35 for something that does nothing (a brick) is expensive. I'm not in the habit of throwing away that much money, and there are many other things I could use it on.

Interpreted more literally, $35 is quite expensive for both an actual brick:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/8-in-x-2-1-4-in-x-4-in-Clay-Bric...

And a plastic brick:

https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-DUPLO-Creative-Duplo-Building/dp...

I plugged it in and followed the simple set-up instructions. The process was interrupted because my device required an update.

No surprises there but the update process descended into a continuous loop farce that didn't look like it was ever going to end.

So I put everything back in its box with the intention to try again at some point in future; 2 years later it is still there.

The price was not so high that it warranted an instant return; I intended to have another go when I had more time - just never got around to it.

So yeah, it was expensive in this respect. Maybe I should have persisted but I value my time and don't see why I should waste it on small issues like this.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chromecast+udate+problem

I noticed amazon offered a better option actually with a LAN connection instead of wi-fi so I opted for this knowing that sending it straight back wouldn't be a problem, if it came to it.

I bought the Chromecast from another UK retailer where a refund would involve a lot more effort..

No offense but I bought a lot of chromecast and even my most tech inept family users have "moved to the tech age" with it and never bother me to get it working.

I'm sure amazon thingy works just as well, but your trouble with it are more anecdotal than the rules.

'...but your trouble with it are more anecdotal than the rules.'

Hence why I said 'for me at least'.

If they would give me an actual controller for the chromecast I might consider it

I have no desire to control my TV with my phone.

I may look into Roku as an alternative to FireTV now though,

I love the Roku. It’s a competitor to the AppleTV in our house. Great device.

I am happy with my Roku Streaming Stick. I have access to every major media provider except Apple and Spotify (who neutered their app earlier this year). My biggest complaint (which isn't applicable to most users) is the limited SDK. I imagine this is why many of the basic video apps look alike.

I'll third the praise for Roku.

The only annoyance is that they put ads on the homescreen, (but that can be blocked at the network level), and that different apps tend to have slightly different/inconsistent UXs, for example pressing "up" while watching Netflix will show you the timeline without pausing, but doing the same in HBO Now will take you back out to the show info page.

The dedicated remotes are nice, though sometimes oddly slow to "wake up". Some models even have headphone jacks on the remote, which can be really handy.

All the versions can be controlled through a really nice Android app, which lets you directly enter text rather than pecking around in a grid keyboard, and also lets you forward audio to your phone/headset instead of the speakers or remote.

Roku, seemingly, accessed my device and disabled side-loading. An unlawful access (unauthorised access, unauthorised modification, both crimes under the Computer Misuse Act in UK).

Put me off an otherwise stellar experience.

>Amazon removing the Chromecast from their store was, if anything, verification at the Fire TV was not a product that could succeed on its own.

Did anyone ever think otherwise? Content is king. Fire stick is just a raspberry pi with half-ass UI built in

But shouldn't Amazon have a content advantage? A metaphorical Raspberry Pi with a better GUI should've been enough.

I interpreted parent's comment to mean Fire TV could not succeed agnostic/irrespective of the content.

Can someone explain this to me.

I bought a Chromecast and took it back the next day, it didn't do anything beyond mirroring content from a particular device (seems everyone who watches needs a device, or you need a 2nd device for a room to be casting from), which any Android device does (including FireTV).

FireTV for me was a million times more useful, I must be missing something?

They fired the second shot when they refused to make anything to stream from a kindle fire to a chromecast. That's literally a "amazon media playing thingy" and it can't stream to the market leader casting device.

I love competition but this to me is a case of "ohh, screw that, just make whatever work with whatever"

> They fired the second shot when they refused to make anything to stream from a kindle fire to a chromecast. That's literally a "amazon media playing thingy" and it can't stream to the market leader casting device.

Actually, Amazon had apps that did this.

Google changed the Chromecast protocol, and demanded that app developers use their proprietary library.

I once had an app that was affected by this, too. The fault is entirely with Google.

Vlc version 4 is now shipping with the ability to cast to a chromecast, without any proprietary library.

Also, amazon makes a tablet is "easy dumb way to consume your media", and while it is not fit for me and probably not for you, it's awesome for the people who know very little and want a recommendation. Yet amazon screwed that up with that move.

What does it matter to them if I use their 40e thingy or google's as long as I buy my media on them. Instead it's revert to Google and buy on Google play.

> Vlc version 4 is now shipping with the ability to cast to a chromecast, without any proprietary library.

VLC actually uses a proprietary library for it, but doesn’t ship it.

Specifically, VLC asks the OS to activate the secondary display, which leads Android to redirect this request to Google Play Services.

This feature does not work on Amazon Kindles, Replicant, LineageOS, CopperheadOS, or any other non-Google Android distributions.

Also, for full Chromecast support, you need to use 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-cast:8.3.+' – which, obviously, is proprietary.

Yeah, normally I'd say two wrongs don't make a right, but if this move manages to convince Amazon to finally support Amazon Video on Chromecast, maybe it's worth it.

Though on the other hand, this could just as easily result in a long-term standoff.

I thought that limitation was more on Google's side more than Amazon deciding not to develop an app.

Google should probably block amazon from any search results. That should get amazons attention if this does not. Its bad that they are not selling google home mini, chromecast , Nest products. What reason they have for blocking google home mini and Nest . For chromecast - they said it does not play prime video which amazon does not offer support for..

A store can sell whatever it likes, surely?

If a store has become so dominant that it is impossible to compete if you can't get a listing, then shouldn't we be addressing that issue? If Amazon is in the dangerous position of manufacturer/retailer/marketplace owner (not to mention hosting provider) to the detriment of competition then Amazon needs breaking up.

If Google is a content provider/directory/manufacturer to the detriment of consumers then the same is true.

This tit for tat stuff over their sucky streaming sticks is not the issue

> Amazon fired the first salvo by dropping the Chromecast a few years back

...after Google intentionally changed the Chromecast protocol almost weekly to force app developers to use their proprietary library, and to prevent third-party implementations of the library from working.

There’s dozens of open source implementations of the protocol from that era left on GitHub, all abandoned over the constant changes that were purely done to prevent anyone (Amazon or open source devs) from streaming to Chromecast, or receiving streams, without going through Google’s proprietary library.

Didn't Google block the ability to stream to Chromecasts? I'm not justifying anyone's behavior here but this is why the "they started it" argument is considered childish. These are all anti-customer moves which will hurt both companies in the long term.

> Didn't Google block the ability to stream to Chromecasts?

IIRC, they made backward incompatible changes to the protocol (which I don't think was ever public, but had been discovered and independently implemented) which effectively broke apps not using the official API implementations (which are limited to Android [Play Services, not AOSP], iOS, and Chrome [not Chromium, AFAIK].)

Agreed. The thing that pisses me off, is that Amazon video doesn't even support Chromecast for streaming, how hard would it be to code that in? I bought firefly from amazon thinking I could easily stream it to my chromecast, but nope.. -- I won't get amazon video, or support any of there video things till I can.

They need to let bygones be bygones and accept each others apps/gadget/technology to make it so each other is a success. They're more a symbiotic relationship than rivals imho.

> how hard would it be to code that in?

How hard is it to support a protocol that the vendor obfuscates, and changes frequently, to prevent you from streaming to it?

Interesting question. From my own experiences trying to build an open source library to stream to it (and to receive streams): Very hard when the vendor is Google.

The only way to stream to Chromecasts is with Google’s proprietary library, and Google will only license that to Amazon once Amazon kills their own App Store.

Is the last part about licensing true (or sourced from somewhere)? Surely Amazon could just drop the Cast library into their iPhone and Android apps and they’d be all set? I can’t see Google stopping them (well maybe they would now it’s escalated, but they wouldn’t have last year.)

I assumed not supporting Cast was just an excuse not to stock Chromecasts etc on Amazon.

BTW I totally agree with the frustration of the Cast protocol not being more open, a tonne of cool standalone ‘browser on TV’ usecases like screensharing/dashboards/multiscreen aren’t possible on Chromecast (and it sucks). I assume they’re under a load of pressure from MPAA type groups to keep it locked down. (As though the TV is some holy box that must be protected.)

> Surely Amazon could just drop the Cast library into their iPhone and Android apps and they’d be all set?

The cast library doesn’t contain any of the code required to cast – all that code is in the Google Play Services in the system app, not in the library.

And you can obviously understand how Amazon can’t just reuse that.

They could certainly do it in their Android and iOS apps. They can't on their Kindle apps, since Kindle is AOSP-based but not Android.

Android is an OS – specifically, the AOSP projects result, the Google Play services are only available in the Google Play distribution of Android.

So Amazon can’t do it in their Android apps, unless they create a special version for Google Play Android.

But Amazon – like many other developers, including myself – refuses to create different versions for different Android distributions.

Other Android distributions that are also excluded include MIUI, Replicant, LineageOS, CopperheadOS, and Androidx86.

> Android is an OS – specifically, the AOSP projects result,

No, Android is a trademark which designates the branded, proprietary-but-open-core OS developed by Google and licensed to handset and other device makers.

AOSP is an open source codebase which forms part of the codebase of Android.

> So Amazon can’t do it in their Android apps, unless they create a special version for Google Play Android

There is no such thing; that's just Android. Pop

> Other Android distributions that are also excluded include MIUI, Replicant, LineageOS, CopperheadOS, and Androidx86.

No, those are other AOSP-derived OSs, which can run some subset of Android apps.

Receiving stream as if you are a Chromecast in an open source form is not likely to work because DRM.

Interestingly, in the beginning it did. Without any DRM.

Later on, at least YouTube, Play Music, and similar streams worked nicely. This was especially nice because so many apps support the protocol.

Sadly, in the end, I gave up on trying to stream to my computer via that protocol, because almost every week Google broke compatibility, and I was simply pissed.

And the real chromecast I have, I can’t use, because it doesn’t support WPA Enterprise.

can't amazon create a play store bridge where if amazon needs to use a play service it opens the bridge and does it through the other app? Wouldn't work on kindle devices without google play, etc... but fuck those, I just need it to work on my Moto v4. Don't know why Amazon has to control the app store anyways, I much prefer Play and won't buy any amazon devices till they have native support of ALL google apps via google play.

It mostly works for me using Chrome on a MacBook to play Amazon video and casting the tab to Chromecast. However, I do have to disconnect and reconnect the Chromecast occasionally.

Maybe a Roku would be more reliable?

I hate/refuse to cast tabs, it's buggy/ugly and I don't like it personally. If I can't pass the stream to chromecast, I just don't do it. I prefer to do all my streaming from my phone not laptop too, using one of the webcast apps that can cast any web page's videos to chromecast.

Last time [1] we speculated, some saying it's a straight tit for tat [2], others, like me [3], saying it can be because Amazon half-assed the implementation after getting no help from Google.

At least this time, we know the real reason.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15348063 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15348063#15349384 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15348063#15349084

The big winner in this would seem, to me, to be Roku - one of those rare cases where being independent actually helps.

Sadly not available outside of the US.

UK here. I have several Roku devices.

Hmm. Did you buy it officially or did you import it?

It’s 100% available in the UK. Bought one officially from Amazon. Not imported.

It did not use to be 100% available, Roku denied for a long time ship their Roku Streaming Stick 3600 to the UK. So you had to find a person that had bought it in the US, or trick them into sending it to you.

When I asked support about it they said "The 3600R is not supported in the UK, so I'm afraid it will not work", however it is now selling on Amazon.

Some believed that it was because of Sky having a deal with Roku (Sky has invested in Roku), and because of that they wanted to brand their own Rokus, or something like that.

I am glad that they have since come to their senses and agreed to sell Rokus in the UK.

I know it is at least available in the UK and France.

roku is freaking terrible. have you even used one? compared to the seamlessness that chromecast plus the price, why would you use anything else.

>>seamlessness that chromecast

how is it seamless, I want a independent device to watch videos on, not a device that have to connect with my phone, tablet or pc then "cast" video to it.

I want a self contained video streaming device with its own physical remote, processor and OS that does not need anything else but a internet connection

Roku and FireTV are different classes of Devices than a ChromeCast

The cool thing about chromecast is that you can drag and drop a video file into chrome and it will play on your tv. I don't want to see ads on youtube, so instead of using the built in chromecast support i just stream the window to my tv with ublock origin installed -- no ads.

That's actually all i want, a wireless hdmi cable. But I'm in a tiny minority.

>>I don't want to see ads on youtube

That is what a PiHole is for ;)

holy shit this is awesome, thank you

you're in like .01% of the population that wants that. the menu's and remote with the roku are horrendous, everything about a roku is terrible. You have log into an account within the 'roku os'. you also have to have the remote on you. I almost always have my phone on me. I'm already signed into all the apps that i want, with a much easier to use keyboard for searching. i tap a button on my screen and it's playing on my tv. The entire experience is 'seamless' just because you like to have 47 extra steps to watch a video doesn't mean that anyone else would like that. Roku is for people who don't know better or are technologically challenged. I mean, if you compared it to the appletv Roku is probably good?

No expierance with the Roku, I have several FireTV's

I also have my phone on me, I still have no desire to use it to control the FireTV when I can just use the arrow keys on the remote, select the video and press play.

if I want to search i will use an actual computer and create a playlist or use the 'watch later" flag on youtube and play from that list on the firetv...

it is not "47 steps" I find using the phone to be cumbersome and battery draining

ohh and I doubt I am in the .01% of normal consumers that want that. I maybe in the .01% of Silicon Valley type Tech people that want that. But your every day consumer, every day moms, dads, grandpa's etc want exactly what I describe, which is why the FireTV is so successful

I'm pretty technically savvy, and I almost never want to use my phone as a remote control. Yes, it's almost always with me, but it has to do a lot of stuff. A Roku remote has a big "Netflix" button on it. I press that button. If my phone had a big Netflix button on it, it would be in the way of dealing with Email, texts from my wife, my work calendar, getting the weather, showing me traffic, etc.

I always have my car keys handy too, but if I had to tap out morse code on my key fob to watch a Seinfeld rerun, I'd kill a hobo just to feel something again. A dedicated device is sometimes far preferable than a general one.

You can use your phone with roku too.

> you're in like .01% of the population that wants [a self contained video streaming device with its own physical remote, processor and OS that does not need anything else but a internet connection]

Then why is Roku the most popular brand of streaming device?[1]

> You have log into an account within the 'roku os'

...and with Chromecast you have to log into an account within the Google Home mobile app. In both cases you only have to log in that first time.

> you also have to have the remote on you

No, you don't. You can use the Roku app on any iOS or Android device.

Most people who buy a device like this are trying to watch Netflix or Hulu; not trying to cast video files from a local storage medium. Note that the marketing copy on Roku.com[2] focuses on everything _except_ casting. And it's the same for Amazon[3].

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/roku-vs-chromecast-amazon-fir...

[2] https://www.roku.com/how-it-works

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Fire-TV-Family/b?ie=UTF8&node=...

And even though it's not a focus, Roku still has a perfectly usable Miracast/WiFi Display implementation that works with any Miracast source. I've used it successfully from both my android phone and win10 laptop.

Chromecasts are a non-starter for families with children. How are they supposed to stream to the TV when they don't have a phone?

I love Roku and use it alongside my AppleTV. Haven’t used Chromecast or FireTV as comparisons but I have nothing bad to say about Roku.

Or nvidia. Shield tv is awesome. They inked out separate deal with amazon for prime video and other amazon stuff on android.

They were probably actively preventing them from releasing a YouTube TV app for the FireTV as well, I'm guessing.

I'd love to switch to YouTube TV (I've had MANY problems with PlayStation Vue, and Sling is decent, but missing some channels). They don't have a FireTV app, though. But frankly I'm ready to simply ditch my FireTV because of that alone. Throw in the fact that my FireTV is covered with ads now and it's kind of a no-brainer.

I watch the PBS NewsHour on Youtube on the FireTV because it tends to be available sooner than on the PBS app. After the last round of updates, I've gotten a lot of video stuttering in YouTube, such that restarting the FireTV is the only way to fix it. That, and the UI of the FireTV got way harder / less-logical to use a few months back (along with the ads).

Beyond the recent junking up of the UI and Youtube hiccuping, I'm getting really, really tired of the Google / Apple / Amazon / content / platform / device wars.

That’s a really great point!

YouTube is probably the best placed brand in the whole market to offer a true OTT cable replacement. And Amazon wants to own that market with Channels.

Amazon would do anything to kill YouTube’s chances of making that happen, so I guess Google is firing some early warning shots!

I had been wondering why they were both so uppity about £30 dongles, but if they’re pre-competing for the £1000 a year cable market then it makes absolute sense!

Is there precedent for a company restricting access to its website by a competitor's device for competitive reasons?

like how you can't view amazon prime videos from android tablets (or at least, certain versions iirc.. amazon yanked it's apk from play store. i dont recall why, but some people simply side-loaded from amazon store).

That's an app. Apps are inherently* limited to a particular OS. I'm asking if a company has restricted a website for competitive reasons.

*Not counting something like phone gap.

I think you recall incorrectly. There's an Amazon Prime Video app in the Play Store.

Now. For a period of time Amazon removed it though.

chormecast only works in chorme. amazon video doesn't support chromecast.

Apple Trailers on Android?

I don't it's blocking the site. They're discontinuing the app. FireTV doesn't directly support web browsing at all.

Echo Show switched to showing YouTube through the web after Google blocked it the first time. Now it looks like Google is blocking the website. https://9to5google.com/2017/11/21/youtube-back-on-amazon-ech...

https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/28/amazon-silk-web-browser-...

One example is when Google got the third party YouTube app removed from the Windows Store. Google had refused to make a decent YouTube port on the store, and so a very well made third party one was introduced. It had all the features that YouTube Red boasts today, but it didn't support ads. This was not because the developers were trying to make a play on Google, but because there wasn't an API to serve ads. They mentioned they were more than happy to comply, but were served a C&D and the app was killed.

Tech Corps. coming of age. I'm looking forward to the next Google.

But how exactly can you pull a website off, i mean it is a web site..

User-agent tracking will work just fine.

In a more non-corporate environment this would be the beginning of an arms race to try to figure out how to fiddle with headers to either block or not block the device, but since we're discussing corporate behemoths with legal teams larger than most companies, it'll stop here, because no legal team would sign off on the idea of fraudulently identifying yourself in a header in order to obtain services from a hostile competitor.

Can't I do this with my own home router? Or is this why Google pushed so hard for TLS everywhere?

It's really an app on the device that uses the YouTube HTML5 API. If you violate their TOS they can prevent access to those API's anytime they want.

Okay, but how is Amazon violating TOS; they are using it the way it is meant to be used.

The first version was a tour de force in TOS violations. It was such an abuse that I'm surprised Amazon were brazen enough to release it considering Google would drop the hammer once they saw it. I guess they thought they could do whatever they wanted with other companies properties. I don't know if the revised version violates the TOS, but I'm guessing it's compliant. This seems to be all about reciprocity with Google which I'm all for. At the end of the day, it's their API and they can determine you can and cannot use it. If Amazon wants to play games by banning Google from their ubiquitous store then Google can do the same with their properties.

The linked article doesn't make this case. Can you provide some more detail of what terms the original and current apps violate?

e: Google's own explanation:

“We’ve been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other's products and services. But Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest's latest products. Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and FireTV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.”

Sounds like this is Google trying to exert leverage on Amazon.

The original version played YouTube videos without any ads, subscriptions, next video recommendations, auto-play and other things that Google thought were necessary for YouTube and its content creators. Amazon was basically stealing content from its creators and not even indirectly compensating them.

>Sounds like this is Google trying to exert leverage on Amazon.

Perhaps, but why should Google help Amazon sell their products, using content from Google's properties, when Amazon blacklists all of Google's products on their store.

Ok but when was that version released? I have been watching YouTube on FireTV for years at this point with advertisements and subscriptions. The current move mentions nothing about TOS and instead mentions Amazon's refusal to sell Google devices.

Google doesn't have to help Amazon sell it's products but it would benefit both companies to cooperate instead of harming their customers to try and get a little more platform dominance. In this case both Amazon and Google are not acing in their customer interests and it will hurt them in the long run.

We're talking about the Echo Show here and it's the version that was shipped with it.

>Google doesn't have to help Amazon sell it's products but it would benefit both companies to cooperate

Until Amazon decides to start selling Google products I doubt this will end anytime soon.

Right, they should both cooperate, it would be better for everyone.

Google has redefined the way it is meant to be used to include "not by Amazon".

‘I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further’

They probably want more control over the implementation of Youtube. Maybe it's not a good experience on the Fire TV and Echo Show.

That's not why. See the article. Google has stated this is because amazon doesn't sell certain google products through their store, and doesn't allow prime video on the chromecast.

Monopoly in action? Anyone familiar with the business here, how is this going to play?

Now we have a new motto: "Don't be Google" (or Amazon).

I've been looking for a tablet for my kids without that filth finally a solution.

it's sucks I have to make a deal with the prime devil to get it.

Why is this Google's call to make? I thought YouTube was a web site/service and the web was open?

This is an App, not a website.

You're still free to browse YT on a Fire TV, but Amazon decided not to include a browser to prevent you from doing so.

YouTube is a commercial product. It's Google's choice to make YouTube free to view. Couldn't they block anything they want?

- Client app implementations

- Specific countries

- Specific browsers

- Specific users

Is this correct?

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