Google goes nuclear against Roku by adding YouTube TV to the main YouTube app

theverge.com

13 points·1cvmask··7 comments

Pretty shady behavior. I’m not inclined to care about licensing disputes but google is a behemoth just begging to get hit with an antitrust lawsuit with this behavior.

There was pretty anti-consumer behaviour from Roku too. Imagine you bought a Roku and subscribed to YouTube TV. Last week, that subscription you paid for just stopped working, through no fault of your own.

Doesn't YouTube TV work on various devices? Roku doesn't eradicate your subscription when they remove the app from their store. I'm not sure they even remove the app from your TV.

Sure, YouTube TV works on many devices, but if a Roku is the only device sitting under your TV, then you have effectively lost your YouTube TV service.

Your TV is now mostly useless since you may not subscribe to any other services or have cable.

Your description of the situation is incorrect. Roku did not forcibly uninstall the app. Rather, it was removed from their channel store.

Incorrect. Roku didn't disable existing installations of the channel. They merely disabled new or re-installation of the channel. People with the YouTube TV channel already on their Roku can still use it, even aside from this whole "bundled into the Youtube channel" thing.

No it doesn’t stop working. The app continues to work but will not receive updates until the dispute is resolved.

You can’t buy a new Roku and set up YouTube TV on it until the app comes back to the Roku store.

It still sucks for consumers.

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