7 ms·

That's not the point. Who cares if it's expensive or confusing. They are banning products that are competing with their own products. Amazon is simply a store

by korzun 11y ago

That's not the point. Who cares if it's expensive or confusing. They are banning products that are competing with their own products. Amazon is simply a store for majority of the people who shop there. If Google banned Amazon from search results you would probably be outraged.

x0x0 11y ago
Google is a monopoly or near monopoly in search. Amazon is not a monopoly or near monopoly in general ecommerce (excluding ebooks.) Seeing as amazon is not a (near) monopoly in general ecommerce, I can't be bothered to care. If you don't like amazon's policies, patronize walmart, target, newegg, apple.com directly, or a dozen other competitors. I personally think amazon is wildly overestimating their ability to extract concessions from apple.
Pyxl101 11y ago
Based on the news article, Amazon isn't banning competitors. Roku competes with Fire TV, and the Netflix app it bundles competes with Prime Video. The article says Amazon will still sell Roku. Indeed, Amazon's Fire TV also supports Netflix and Hulu and HBO and ESPN and whatnot, not just Amazon Video. The news article says that they're banning video streaming devices that don't support Amazon Video. So if that's true, it's not that they're banning competitors, but that they're forcing streaming devices sold on Amazon to support Amazon Video in addition to whatever else they support. I don't know what the primary motivation is, but I could genuinely see some customers being confused. Imagine you're a customer that's just signed up for Prime. You don't have a TV stick to watch it on, so you shop around the store and find a streaming device that's highly reviewed. You buy it and plug it in, only to find that Amazon Video does not work on it, or works poorly. This is plausible; this kind of thing happens, especially with unsophisticated, less computer savvy buyers (the kind of people who think the Google search box is the Internet). I could easily see my parents making this kind of mistake. Whether that's the primary motivation, I wouldn't know. It seems like you could also deal with that problem by changing the way the product is displayed, for people who have Prime Video, and show a big warning like "This product does not support Prime Video" on the side so they can't overlook that fact when buying it. (Though this could lead to other complications - I could imagine there being weird legal or anti-competitive issues with making claims like that about competitors' products in a way that they can't control, that's not part of the product description. Banning them might be the simplest way.)
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > The news article says that they're banning video streaming devices that don't support Amazon Video. The only reason the devices don't support Amazon Video is because Amazon has chosen not to build apps that support those devices.
  - nullrouted 11y ago
    But you need to go deeper. Amazon hasn't built apps that support those devices because those devices manufacturers want a cut of their profits off of subscriptions or rentals because those device manufacturers (Google / Apple) want people to use their own services instead.
    - xienze 11y ago
      That's only for in-app subscription purchases. You didn't think Apple was getting a 30% cut off Prime video subscriptions just because there's an iPad app, right? Or Netflix for that matter. This is a problem entirely of Amazon's making. And I don't understand it. No one makes money on the devices, they make money on the subscriptions. It's in their best interests to be on as many devices as possible.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Or because they don’t support the specific DRM system used?
- WorldMaker 11y ago
  If it were the primary motivation to avoid confusing Prime members they could easily just add a bold description field: DOES NOT SUPPORT AMAZON VIDEO. They could also just drop it from Prime-eligible rather than drop it from the store entirely. Many Prime members filter things by Prime-eligible (for many different reasons) and that would possibly be more effective than dropping it entirely.

by korzun 11y ago

x0x0 11y ago

Google is a monopoly or near monopoly in search. Amazon is not a monopoly or near monopoly in general ecommerce (excluding ebooks.) Seeing as amazon is not a (near) monopoly in general ecommerce, I can't be bothered to care. If you don't like amazon's policies, patronize walmart, target, newegg, apple.com directly, or a dozen other competitors. I personally think amazon is wildly overestimating their ability to extract concessions from apple.

Pyxl101 11y ago

Based on the news article, Amazon isn't banning competitors. Roku competes with Fire TV, and the Netflix app it bundles competes with Prime Video. The article says Amazon will still sell Roku. Indeed, Amazon's Fire TV also supports Netflix and Hulu and HBO and ESPN and whatnot, not just Amazon Video. The news article says that they're banning video streaming devices that don't support Amazon Video. So if that's true, it's not that they're banning competitors, but that they're forcing streaming devices sold on Amazon to support Amazon Video in addition to whatever else they support. I don't know what the primary motivation is, but I could genuinely see some customers being confused. Imagine you're a customer that's just signed up for Prime. You don't have a TV stick to watch it on, so you shop around the store and find a streaming device that's highly reviewed. You buy it and plug it in, only to find that Amazon Video does not work on it, or works poorly. This is plausible; this kind of thing happens, especially with unsophisticated, less computer savvy buyers (the kind of people who think the Google search box is the Internet). I could easily see my parents making this kind of mistake. Whether that's the primary motivation, I wouldn't know. It seems like you could also deal with that problem by changing the way the product is displayed, for people who have Prime Video, and show a big warning like "This product does not support Prime Video" on the side so they can't overlook that fact when buying it. (Though this could lead to other complications - I could imagine there being weird legal or anti-competitive issues with making claims like that about competitors' products in a way that they can't control, that's not part of the product description. Banning them might be the simplest way.)

dragonwriter 11y ago
> The news article says that they're banning video streaming devices that don't support Amazon Video. The only reason the devices don't support Amazon Video is because Amazon has chosen not to build apps that support those devices.
- nullrouted 11y ago
  But you need to go deeper. Amazon hasn't built apps that support those devices because those devices manufacturers want a cut of their profits off of subscriptions or rentals because those device manufacturers (Google / Apple) want people to use their own services instead.
  - xienze 11y ago
    That's only for in-app subscription purchases. You didn't think Apple was getting a 30% cut off Prime video subscriptions just because there's an iPad app, right? Or Netflix for that matter. This is a problem entirely of Amazon's making. And I don't understand it. No one makes money on the devices, they make money on the subscriptions. It's in their best interests to be on as many devices as possible.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Or because they don’t support the specific DRM system used?
WorldMaker 11y ago
If it were the primary motivation to avoid confusing Prime members they could easily just add a bold description field: DOES NOT SUPPORT AMAZON VIDEO. They could also just drop it from Prime-eligible rather than drop it from the store entirely. Many Prime members filter things by Prime-eligible (for many different reasons) and that would possibly be more effective than dropping it entirely.