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> From Roku's blog post, it seems that Google wants a dedicated area in the global search for YouTube results. For example, If you search for "Last Week Tonight", Google wants a YouTube results row showing clips on their service above results from other content platforms like HBO Max. Basically, Google wants to have the placement that search ads get on their platform on Roku.

Previous discussions[0] suggested that it was simply "where does pressing the remote search button take you". If you're in the YT TV app, Google likely wanted the button to focus the search button within the app, not bring you back to the system-wide search.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944837

It's a great example of what both companies see as their value proposition (to users, and to Wall Street).

Roku: aggregating multiple streaming providers in a provider-agnostic way

Google: centralizing streaming through the YouTube brand (considering it comprises multiple offerings now)

I'm not a huge fan of Roku, due to data collection, but it's apparent who's on the side of the user here. Google/YouTube has finally grown big enough to be everything we hated about legacy content providers.

NextDNS seems to block Roku's data collection efforts (as well as other "smart tvs")

My PiHole blocks the Roku data collection, too

This isn’t new. Google messed with YouTube (and Maps) on Windows Phone which is now many years ago.

As a user, I see Google's point on this. I often get annoyed when I want to search within the system I'm using and get pushed to a global search, when I want to stay in the app. I'm sure to the app developers this is doubly annoying because it means taking their users away to other platforms. Ironically Google themselves are pretty bad about this - on any given google product it's a roll of the dice what the scope of the "search" button will be.

You can search within the youtube app for youtube content.

LG WebOS has a YouTube TV app and the search button in the remote takes you to the global search function. This doesn’t seem to cause any friction between google and LG. Because YouTube TV seems to work everywhere but on roku I tend to blame roku here.

Or LG WebOS is not a big enough market for Google to care about the experience to put their foot down, at that point they’d rather be on the device (and controlling other devices where it counts).

This is all hearsay though and it’s unclear if Google even made such demands to Roku.

LG has 11% of the global TV market and its home electronics division revenues are 20 times larger than Roku's.

In most markets, LG and Roku are quite competitive and within a few percentage points of one another. In South America, a less mature but fast growing market, LG has a significant lead over Roku with 23% market share. But in North America, Roku is the market leader with 37% market share, to LG's 4%.

Globally, Roku controls 30% (down from 33% in 2020).

https://www.protocol.com/roku-global-expansion-conviva-data

"Home electronics" covers a lot more than streaming, and even a portion of that revenue could account for users with an LG TV who use a Roku device instead of WebOS. It's not a good comparison.

LG tvs are quite a bit more expensive than Roku boxes (Roku TVs are made and sold by other parties), so comparing revenue is not very meaningful. Also since home electronics consists of many products, and Roku has essentially a single product.

To my knowledge, LG hasn't implied that they want a piece of YouTube's revenue, while the Roku executive team has hinted that capturing some of the revenue from the streaming services is one of their long term goals.

I suspect YouTube's dealmakers think Roku are being sticklers to try to extract a small financial concession, and they're afraid that if they give an inch, it'll open the floodgates and everyone will want a piece of their revenue.

Is it all Rokus or all new Rokus?

If Google wants to move to AV1 it makes sense to sign forward thinking contracts even if they have existing hardware that doesn't support it.

All of this distracts from the fact that this medium used to be regulated and broadcasters we're required to exhibit fairness, offer news (regulated by fairness), it was free and had minimal ads and was accessible to everyone. We have democratized content creation and lost the good things we developed for "free television," a philosophy of nearly ubiquitous distribution and fairness.

What is the philosophy now? The market is going to yield a spread of reliable information for free? I have to have the means to pay for five different streaming services to get access to all of the valuable content to consider myself informed. It's not just about the latest Marvel movie or Squid Games tripe, it is about an informed citizenry getting access to information. Why is that not part of the debate at all?

This very situation--Google and Netflix fighting over a blanket--is problematic in and of itself and much bigger than both of them put together.

> It's dumb and twisted that Google won't allow Roku devices to run YouTube if Roku doesn't commit that all future Roku devices support AV1 - when even Google's own streaming device doesn't support AV1.

Surely that would only be the case if Google's future streaming devices don't support AV1, not the current one. And they well might tbh.