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It's doubly weird, because YouTube TV is literally just a side project -- There's at least a 50% chance Google just totally shuts down YouTube TV within the next five years. (Like they already did with Google Play Music, and Google Play Movies + TV once before).

Google's going to war with Roku over something that Google doesn't care about at all (it's one minor ancillary line of business to them), but is Roku's main and only meaningful line of business.

If you want to be locked into a single vendor, you can already buy Google TV from Sony or TCL (where this vendor-lock-in is guaranteed). The whole point of Roku is that it's independent, it's not operated by any one streaming/media service, it's not a "Google TV" or an "Apple TV" or a "PlayStation TV" or whatever.

Roku has to fight this, tooth-and-nail, or all other services on the Roku platform will demand the same, and totally destroy the entire Roku product lineup.

Right, and that's why I really can't believe this spat has the full force of Alphabet Inc behind it. I think its just Google's highly independent culture taken to the extreme with an idiotic, toxic, vengeful middle manager. Its a form of small dog syndrome; blowing their chest up as a compensation mechanism for how much of a side-project YouTube TV is for Alphabet, a desperate attempt to get additional promotion from Roku to prop up falling subscriber growth.

In most other companies, everything else being equal: someone higher up would have already stepped in and said "YouTube TV isn't worth it, you need to end this, you're sullying the corporate brand." But that's not really how Google operates; at least, not yet.

Actually its not true at all. There is a real and growing market for people who just want old cable packages but served over the internet (something Google knows about). They have the cash and technical chops to make the best service for this. It aligns with some other things (Stadia, Youtube, Android TV/cast) to round out a total home/living room offering. Home is core for google (hubs, cams, routers, etc) and they do well at it.

Also, the competition is faltering. SlingTV lost NBC regional sports networks in April. I now must move over to Youtube TV. I think the competition gets stronger here, including Apple getting into the space with a live TV offering at some point. Amazon probably too with its sports rights.

Youtube TV is both important for Google, but also a way they can make Roku weaker. At the end of the day, I don’t think Google, Amazon or Apple really want another strong competitor in the living room. Don’t give them youtube TV.

>Like they already did with Google Play Music, and Google Play Movies + TV once before

GPM didn't get shut down, it got switched over to YTM. If you want to use that as an example for what might happen to YTTV, then it'd be YTTV getting moved over to an inferior rebrand that occupies the same space. And I don't know what you're talking about with Play Movies and TV. It's still there.

> And I don't know what you're talking about with Play Movies and TV. It's still there.

Google Play Movies and TV was shutdown earlier this year to be replaced (sort of) with YouTube TV -- the same "YouTube TV" in the article above.

https://twitter.com/liliputingnews/status/138170402082645197...

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-play-movies-shutdown...

The shutdown of Google Play Movies and TV and the stuffing of parts of that system into "YouTube TV", is sort of the original catalyst for how Roku and YouTube TV got into this fight in the first place.

The service itself was not shut down. It still exists. It's not supported on the same platforms as it was before.

No, I can easily drop YouTube TV. Roku is built into each of my 3 TVs. I'm glad this was about Youtube TV, if it ws the Youtube app I'd have a problem.

I thought the same thing, but apparently the article mentions that the base YouTube app is also affected by this spat:

"The two companies had a December deadline for renegotiation, but sources say it hasn’t been met, and as a result, new Roku devices will continue to be unable to download YouTube or YouTube TV apps."

It IS about the regular YouTube app.

"middle managers" are not negotiating these partnership deals.

I don't really buy the compression algorithm thing either - surely they make more off of ads than the savings that would be generated from better compression.

pretty sure this is just hardball over revenue sharing, data sharing, and technical requirements...

Sure they are. In mega-corporations like Alphabet, even the head of YouTube is a middle-manager.

The “head of YouTube” is Susan Wojcicki [1]. Her title is CEO of YouTube, she reports directly to the CEO of Alphabet, Sundar Pichai [2], and is frequently floated as a candidate for next CEO of Alphabet if Mr. Pichai left. She has thousands of people in her reporting chain. She is about as far from a middle-manager as you are from being Alphabet’s CEO. Please inform yourself a bit more before making completely outlandish statements.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Wojcicki [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundar_Pichai

Hah, Wojcicki being the next CEO would be the end of Google. Who needs a CEO that is despised in their organisation and utterly ignorant to what is happening on YT?

The term "middle manager" doesn't mean "someone who has a boss and also has reports".

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_management

This whole situation really feels like Roku has their head stuck up their ass. People are just as likely to leave Roku, as they are to leave YouTube TV. Their customer numbers can't be strong enough to justify such idiotic behavior. To me, this sounds like a middle manager gone rogue, and no one higher up has stepped in yet and said "Ok, you shot your shot, but YouTube called your bluff, you've taken this way too far."

This kind of response appears immature. You could have said the equivalent with something like “you could swap Roku and YouTube TV etc” and it wouldn’t appear petty.