Google and Amazon are punishing their own customers in a bitter feud | Hacker News Reader

Google and Amazon are punishing their own customers in a bitter feud

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55 pointsgridscomputing25 comments

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> Amazon has just responded to Google’s decision to remove YouTube from all Fire TV products

I'm sorry - is amazon prime video available on my chromecast now and I've missed it?

These guys are bloody hypocrites.

(edit: meant to say 'prime video' on chromecast, previously it just said prime)

> I'm sorry - is amazon prime available on my chromecast now and I've missed it?

It used to be (well, Amazon Prime itself not, but they were working on it, and the Netflix app on Kindles did support it), until Google started constantly changing the (proprietary) protocol to prevent anyone else from implementing it.

Currently, the only way to stream to Chromecast is with Google’s proprietary library, which they only license under the Android OEM terms (meaning you have to ship ALL Google apps, set them as defaults, and can’t run your own App Store).

This has also completely killed all open source projects that tried to support the Chromecast protocol.

>Currently, the only way to stream to Chromecast is with Google’s proprietary library

At some point the cast extension became a part of the browser. It also stopped working with chromium around the same time. However, it started working again a while later. My chromium on ubuntu can use the cast button. I wonder if it's falling back to chrome's proprietary bits (as in flash, widevine etc.) or if it's actually in chromium. The cast button in the browser is not the same as native chromecast support, but it's something.

The question you should be asking is if Amazon stops Google from developing its own Prime client. Because that's what Google does here.

Does amazon let anyone develop their own prime client? Not sure google being somewhat more open in general is a good knock against them.

I'd been debating which one to get, Amazon stick or Chromecast. This settles the debate. I'll download and watch, as before.

This is why I got a Roku device

This is why I use Kodi from a Linux HTPC

I recently bought a Roku, since it was one of the few devices that had an app for Twitch.tv. Little did I know, Amazon recently bought Twitch and yanked their app from the Roku channel list. They are clearly trying to redirect people to their own streaming devices. Yet another content provider with a conflict of interest...

Is this going to trouble Google’s antitrust problems in Europe? “You better carry nest or we pull YouTube.” Seems kind of similar to Microsoft’s 90s era “You better only carry IE or we cut you off or charge you a lot more.”

How? "You better install Amazon's app store, or no Amazon Prime Video". "You let us access YouTube on Fire devices, but we won't sell Chromecast & Google devices on Amazon.com" - Coming from the monopoly in online retail, looks very much like an anti-trust case.

This is a good point. But I think YouTube has a much larger share of video and certainly Google if search than Amazon does of retail.

Amazon currently has about 1/3 of econmerce in the US and a much smaller share of overall retail.

Prime video example does not fit, as Amazon does not have a monopoly neither on video, nor on App Store. It would only be illegal, if Amazon App Store would be a monopoly, and its installation would require additional installation of Prime Video app (hello, Google).

I think these are different issues over different products.

Google should take the high road and keep YouTube available as broadly as possible. YouTube shouldn’t care about Nest product availability.

This would be similar to CBS blocking Wal-Mart mentioned in shoes because they wouldn’t sell Westibghouse TVs.

The reprisals aren’t similar.

The scary bit is that it reenforces that Google doesn’t view the internet as open. Could you imagine YouTube blocking the Opera Browser? They shouldn’t try to bundle services unnaturally.

In other words, Amazon is about to start selling thermotasts.

This is the kind of thing that regulators need to crack down on ASAP. This balkanization of the Internet is terrible for consumers.

this kind of shit is why i just download all of my media. music, tv shows, movies, they’re all easy to download and then i can play the back on whatever device i please with no restrictions

This kind of behavior is why I recently steered a friend to a Roku. With any of the streaming devices (Amazon, Google, Apple) you risk losing out due to dueling between the major tech companies.. The major players tend to leave Roku alone since it's a 3rd party service that doesn't compete with them.

So I'm throwing my bet towards Roku since it's the only device that can survive a pissing match between all the tech companies.

Is this also why Amazon refuses to sell the Google Home?

Yes

I know this is probably more of a shared bad behavior situation, it really frustrates me as Google did more or less the same thing against Microsoft. Dunno, feels like if they could silo their services away from every other platform at this point without hurting themselves, they would.

The YouTube block is surprising at all. Google did the same thing with Windows Phone.

While this is framed as a feud, I don't think that's actually the case.

Nest products have had a lot of public criticism, and I suspect amazons internal numbers might show high return rates and high levels of user fraud.

It could also be that amazon wanted a higher margin on the devices than Google was happy to give.

Either of those would be understandable reasons for Amazon not stocking Nest products. Given that they have not publicly explained their decision it seems fair to assume their behaviour is as claimed in the article.

Children squabbling.

Does Amazon block third parties from selling Nest products on their site too?

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