14 ms·

Google pulls YouTube off the Amazon Echo Show

135 points by alttab 9y ago

alexandercrohde 9y ago
Sounds like YouTube is due for an effective competitor. I see plenty of free porn sites offering reliable quality video streaming, so I don't know what we're waiting for.
fhood 9y ago
Google has been acting all Gates era microsofty lately.
- wmccullough 9y ago
  I was thinking Balmer but I’ll take it
  - fhood 9y ago
    I could be mistaken, but I thought Gates was the one who set the standard for hyper aggressive anti competitive tactics.
    - samfisher83 9y ago
      I think Gates has rehabilitated his image a little, but he was a pretty ruthless business man. He completely destroyed Netscape using the windows monopoly.
      - KGIII 9y ago
        It's not popular to voice this, but some of Netscape's fall was due to self-inflicted wounds. In the end, they'd piled a package together called Netscaoe Communicator and it had become a bloated and buggy mess. They weren't alone in these regards, but they took it to new levels and QA was seemingly nonexistent. IIRC, even Opera went so far as to have an email client and newsgroups reader included. Netscape had both the email client and newsgroup reader, it also had a web authoring tool, conferencing software, Netcaster (which I never did figure out what it did), and a calendar. Heck, I think it even had other feature... It had all of those in what was theoretically a browser at a time when computers typically had RAM with double digit values in MB. Microsoft certainly didn't help, but I'm not sure that they really destroyed it.
        bsharitt 9y ago
        I think the communicator thing came after Microsoft had already had Netscape in its sights. In response to Microsoft going after their browser with their monopoly, Netscape expanded their server offerings from web server to include other stuff that competed with Microsoft's BackOffice and they did Communicator to almost be a groupware suite. While Communicator may not have helped, the Netscape ship was already on fire for Microsoft attacks at that point.
        KGIII 9y ago
        Oh, Microsoft certainly helped sink them, but I'm of the opinion that Netscape was gleefully poking holes in their ship at the same time. I never did figure out what Communicator actually was meant to do. Someone likened it to ActiveScript (I think that's what it was called, IE's proprietary scripting stuff that required hosting on Windows). I was largely an Opera user back then. I still am, but that leads to a long off-topic conversation.
        scarface74 9y ago
        People don’t understand how badly Netscape sucked around IE3. I remember seeing an article back in the 90s talking about how badly Netscape crashed on every platform it ran on. Netscape routinely bought down my Mac at the time.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- RestlessMind 9y ago
  I'd say that's only fair for a ruthless adversary like Bezos, no? I already posted some examples of Amazon's behavior in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15349384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15349384
thebiglebrewski 9y ago
This is pretty lame because it's quite fun to ask for a video to be played.
Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
Sounds anticompetitive to me.
- izacus 9y ago
  About as anticompetitive as Amazon refusing to list Chromecast and Google Home devices, blocking installation of Prime Video on Android TV devices and several other customer hostile actions this spat has resulted in. Thanks to walled gardens, we're now pretty much stuck in a shitty situation noone else can fix.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    One of those players has a virtual monopoly on internet videos by subsidizing a money losing service with the virtual monopoly on search revenues. The other is a store that has lots and lots of competition.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      That "store" has a virtual monopoly on cloud services, which it uses to subsidize its unprofitable online store and logistics network. Edit: revenue is not profit!
      - mattmanser 9y ago
        Search revenues (major) vs YouTube revenues (minor). AWS revenues (minor) vs Store revenues (major) . I'm not trying to defend Amazon or anything, but you really are comparing very different situations.
    - criddell 9y ago
      Is YouTube a money loser? Their revenues are estimated to be around $10 billion. Surely their expenses can't be that high.
      - dottrap 9y ago
blahman2 9y ago
The story is actually on the verge.yay amp links.
bla2 9y ago
If the result here is cast support for Amazon video and YouTube working again, I'll take it. It's not like Amazon isn't doing the same thing.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  This fight started with Google. Google gates off their Android apps solely to manufacturers which agree to all of Google's demands on control of Android devices, things like the default search settings, which apps are preinstalled, etc. In order to comply with Google's terms, Amazon would've literally had to preinstall Google Play Books on their Kindles. This issue is the subject of the EU's next antitrust case expected to be settled this year. Amazon then in return chose to not sell Google products which were intentionally blocked from supporting Kindle products, which is why they won't sell the Chromecast, for instance.
  - PeterisP 9y ago
    From the consumer perspective, Amazon being forced to preinstall Google Play Books on their Kindles sounds like a good thing, it only increases competition for the actual content.
    - sigstoat 9y ago
      on the other hand, book sales surely subsidize the hardware costs, so they'd have had to sell those android kindles for significantly more. which wouldn't have been a good thing for consumers. which one outweighs the other? beats me.
    - TallGuyShort 9y ago
      Which consumer has 2 thumbs and would rather have as little bloat pre-installed due to weird business requirements as possible? This guy!
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      I think there's a significant difference between preinstallation requirements and support. It'd be excellent if antitrust action against Google required they compulsorily offer Google Apps to any device which can technically install them, so that Amazon users could install Play Books if they wish. I do not think a company should be forced to preinstall a competitor's app. Imagine your Google Pixel being required to have the Windows Store installed. Wouldn't that be irritating?
amelius 9y ago
This shows how important competition is. If YT wasn't the only silo with our videos, then Google wouldn't be able to play this trick.
- gourou 9y ago
  I'm sure Amazon will strike back with Twitch
- nannal 9y ago
  there are competitors though, DTube (I'm affiliated), Vid.me, Vimeo
  - Sargos 9y ago
    Vimeo is the only one in that list I've even heard of
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - adventured 9y ago
    There are no meaningful competitors to YouTube in most markets, that includes Vimeo. Google search has competitors too, none that are large or threatening enough to influence Google's product behavior around search. That's the key when it comes to competition. If a competitor is so small you can safely ignore them, they're a competitor in name only. The only potential threat to YouTube in the near-term, is Facebook's watch product.
    - AlphaSite 9y ago
      Twitch.
  - yasserkaddour 9y ago
    Dailymotion
  - 9y ago
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> Amazon’s implementation of YouTube on the Echo Show violates our terms of service, creating a broken user experience. Does anyone know what specific terms Amazon is allegedly violating?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- rockostrich 9y ago
  I think it was mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but the Echo Show was not implementing YouTube features such as subscriptions, next video recommendations, autoplay, etc.
sergiotapia 9y ago
@dang: Can you update the URL to the canonical url, not the Google AMP one?
linkbot 9y ago
Canonical link: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-amazon-echo-show https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-a... First-party AMP link: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-amazon-echo-show https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/9/26/16371292/goo... As-submitted link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-amazon-echo-show https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...
kettlecorn 9y ago
Something similar happened in the past where Google blocked Microsoft's YouTube app on Windows Phone. The reason was that the only official way Google allowed for non iOS/Android clients was if they used the HTMl API. Microsoft decided they wanted native performance so they wrote their own client to YouTube instead of using the HTML API. Microsoft's YouTube didn't play advertisements, which obviously Google wasn't ok with. So after some back and forth Google just said "No". I think Amazon probably made a similar mistake here.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  > if they used the HTMl API That's not enough to satisfy Google. Not at all. They have far-reaching rules about what you do with the HTML.
ams6110 9y ago
They stopped supporting it on Wii consoles also. Yeah old tech I guess but I still use one for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and until recently YouTube. My guess would be it's harder to monitize when they don't have access to all the other stuff they can track in a browser or phone app.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  In particular after they launched Youtube Red...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
flyinghamster 9y ago
One more reason not to buy internet-enabled Things, as far as I'm concerned. I don't want my stuff held hostage by corporate disputes, regardless of who's "in the right" in a dispute. Of course, there's the side issue of having an always-on voice-controlled computer hooked up to my LAN, but that's a different rant.
- niftich 9y ago
  This kind of dispute existed long before IoT. For example, television channels routinely disappear from carriers like cable and satellite providers [1] as contract disputes go on longer and the existing contract expires. The disappearance of a channel is used as a tactic by the channel's owners to entice complaints by the carrier's customers to the carrier, hopefully convincing the carrier that it should try to get the channel back. The reality of the situation is that many things these days are fundamentally services instead of objects, and services are subjects to Terms of Service, and can often morph into something else or entirely disappear subject to the provider's strategies or whims. Internet-enabled devices merely enable this business model, which can be advantageous (e.g. it's really hard to consume live content without some kind of live content delivery; or, stuff I upload into a particular cloud is stored durably and resiliently with nice uptime SLAs and I can frequently access it from other devices; or, this device actually gets security updates instead of running an ancient 5-year-old kernel vulnerability), but also detrimental to the end-user (e.g. sometimes stuff disappears from Netflix and never comes back; online services that get shut down; DRM services that get shut down such that playback rights can no longer be renewed, etc). It seems to me that in your comment, Internet-enabled things are standing in for 'captive devices'. A Fire Stick, a Google Home, an Apple TV are tiny outposts of their host companies inside your house, connected through your LAN to their HQ. They're not actually yours in any meaningful sense. You can use them if you wish to take advantage of the services they provide, but those services are ephemeral and may be radically altered or entirely go away at any time, and the giant wall of text that we all click through warns us of that, even if we shrug and use it anyway because it gates features we really want. [1] https://consumerist.com/tag/blackouts/ https://consumerist.com/tag/blackouts/
  - alexandercrohde 9y ago
gizmodo59 9y ago
This may be a bit off topic, but one of the extensions I loved was forced to be unpublished from Chrome Store. Its called Streamus and it plays audio of a Youtube video in the background and it was really good! Email Communications from Google: https://imgur.com/15gaOf6 https://imgur.com/15gaOf6 HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9873255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9873255 I wish this extension existed still when I can legally not watch a video with Youtube RED.
alexandercrohde 9y ago
Why do people keep focusing on which company to blame. It's not a Amazon VS Google issue. It's a Tech-Company VS Consumer problem. If you give me a shitty experience because you want to dominate the world, well too bad, I'm opting out. I couldn't care less who's fault it is, I am the customer, I am right, and if you want to earn my money it's your duty to deliver me a great experience.
- epicide 9y ago
  I wouldn't say it's their duty. If you're not paying them, they don't owe you anything. If you are paying them, they only owe you what they promised. However, your sentiment is correct since it is a two-way street. You don't owe them your time or money when they make stupid decisions. You just cut ties with them and they lose out.
  - alexandercrohde 9y ago
    Yes, I pay $900 for a "smart tv" that locks me into their shitty apps. I buy an echo show and am now in the middle of some war. If you bought an iPod you were locked in to their store. fuck these devices. I'm not paying for less freedom.
jasode 9y ago
Fyi... a guess about the "terms of service" being violated: Author wrote: >, I’d guess Google very much wants features that it thinks are essential for YouTube’s future growth included, stuff like subscriptions, next video recommendations, autoplay, and so on. And similar excerpt from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/27/google-pulls-youtube-from-amazon-echo-show.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/27/google-pulls-youtube-from-am...: >The Echo Show had displayed YouTube videos without integral features, from video recommendations to channel subscriptions. For more context, the importance of the above "recommendation" features to Google in The Atlantic article and related HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14910125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14910125
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
Maybe it's time for a net neutrality requirement for market dominant services such as YouTube. If a user has access to content, then the user is allowed to request that content via the agent of their choice. Thus, what hardware to use to watch YouTube would be the consumer's choice.
- VikingCoder 9y ago
  ...and then I can watch Amazon Prime on my Chromecast.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Amazon always wanted this (the fire sticks are a loss for them), but Google does not allow you to cast to Chromecast without having Play Services installed, Google doesn't allow Amazon to use Play Services on Kindle without removing all competing Amazon apps, and Amazon won't enable chromecast in their apps only for some users.
    - VikingCoder 9y ago
      "Amazon won't enable chromecast in their apps only for some users" Some? You mean, "All Certified Android users"? There's what, a billion devices like that?
      - kuschku 9y ago
        Which would basically be giving the middle finger to people who bought Amazon’s own products. Remember, Chromecast used to work on Kindle apps until Google banned that.
        VikingCoder 9y ago
        ...probably because Amazon purposefully stopped Amazon Prime Video from working on Chromecast.
niftich 9y ago
YouTube has some fairly specific requirements that third-party clients must adhere to [1]. According to my recollection and Google's own revision history [2], this general form of the document dates to August 2016, since at the time I submitted it to HN [3], although no discussion ensued. In that update, they reformulated their Terms of Service and instead published a series of documents focusing on various topics that third-party developers must uphold to be able to serve as a YouTube client. This means that, as an easy example, clients which omit Google's ads [5] are running afoul of these policies. That being said, as with most ToS, YouTube reserves the right to terminate access to its API Services at any time [4]. [1] https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/required-minimum-functionality https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/required-minimum... [2] https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/revision-history https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/revision-history [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12409825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12409825 [4] https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/api-services-terms-of-service#termination https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/api-services-ter... [5] https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/developer-policies#i-additional-prohibitions https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/developer-polici...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jackdh 9y ago
Looks like Google has not forgiven Amazon for pulling the chromecast's off of their store!
hota_mazi 9y ago
Considering that Google Home is completely black holed on Amazon, this kind of response only seems fair.
- DerfNet 9y ago
  All Google-branded products are blacklisted on Amazon. If you search for "Chromecast", your results will be Fire Sticks and then knockoff Chromecasts called "Anycast".
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Not at all, many Google oroducts are available, and easily found. The Nexus devices, for example. But Google refuses to provide a way for Amazon to support Chromecast from all devices (including Kindles), so Amazon obviously had to make their own solution.
    - epicide 9y ago
      Search Amazon specifically for "chromecast" and see what you get. First result is a Fire Stick. "Amazon's Choice" -- okay, that's fair, I guess. Second result is a Roku Stick. Odd, but at least it's relevant? Third result thru the rest of the page is a bunch of blatant knockoffs of both styles of Chromecast. That's pretty shitty. Edit: to clarify, by "shitty" I mean "user hostile". They would rather push me towards a clear knockoff of what I'm searching for instead of the product I'm clearly searching for.
    - DerfNet 9y ago
      >The Nexus devices So you can buy used or refurbished phones from some third party retailer, great, but you cannot buy a Pixel or Chromecast or Google Home. Also, is it Google preventing Amazon from getting Prime onto their devices? I've always been under the impression this was Amazon's choice, as it helps them move more Fire sticks.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        > So you can buy used or refurbished phones from some third party retailer, great, but you cannot buy a Pixel or Chromecast or Google Home. New nexus devices are still for sale. > Also, is it Google preventing Amazon from getting Prime onto their devices? I've always been under the impression this was Amazon's choice, as it helps them move more Fire sticks. Correct, Google requires Play Services nowadays for Chromecast. Amazon Prime Video and Netflix both used to support Chromecast on Kindle devices and elsewhere, Google disabled that functionality, and Amazon removed it elsewhere. Fire sticks are sold at a loss.
RestlessMind 9y ago
Given the shady tactics pulled by Amazon [1], [2] when it comes to Google products, this move seems totally fair. [1] Promoting Amazon products while searching for "Google Home": https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/135-4089858-5408855?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=google+home https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/135-4089858-540885... [2] Not selling chromecast because it doesn't support Amazon video, which they themselves won't make available on chromecase
- choward 9y ago
  Sure it's fair from a company vs. company perspective. But as an end user, I don't give a crap. The more crap like this you pull the more I will hate your company. I hate when things are inconvenient and it's not because of a technical limitation.
  - RestlessMind 9y ago
    Fair enough. But whom will you hate exactly? If one cannot see Youtube on Echo Show, I bet end users will hate Echo Show ("hey look, Youtube works fine on iPhone but not on this device") more than Youtube. Which is why we need some "net neutrality" kind of regulations as alluded to in another comment on this topic.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- katastic 9y ago
  Everything is fair when Google does it, on HackerNews!
- amrrs 9y ago
  Indeed, anyone who remembers the fate of Diapers.com in the hands of Amazon would find no mistake from Google. It's just something Amazon has been practicing for so long.
amelius 9y ago
How do they detect that it's Echo? Can't Amazon send a different user-agent string?
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Well, Amazon is likely using Google's YouTube API. When you use the API, you have to have an API key registered with Google and send all of your API requests with it. Google likely just banned the key, and given the potential for legal action, no corporation is going to try and "trick" Google by registering a different API key, spoofing their identity, etc., particularly since it's high profile and very easy to identify that Amazon has done something of the sort.
  - amelius 9y ago
    Ok. Can't they just run a browser inside the Echo? (So that the YT API is not used). PS: One more reason not to depend on APIs.
eksemplar 9y ago
Do people over 30 actually use YouTube? I see my younger colleagues on there a lot, but be yet to find anything that was worth my time unless it broke copyright laws.
- linuxps2 9y ago
  It's the DIY go-to for my parents and I'd argue most people - sure, my parents aren't subscribed to video game streamers or whatever you call people like h3h3 but if there's a channel similar to HGTV my mom is all over it
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  I use it all the time. There's a ton of educational material, news, how-to's, comedy, etc on it. Additionally, it's usually pretty easy to find copyrighted content on there
- jkchu 9y ago
  I would recommend checking out the channel "Primitive Technology". It is a good example of quality YouTube content.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    Yeah, I was about to recommend this as well. There's a ton of good content, it's just weird with how hard it is to discover sometimes.
thinbeige 9y ago
Am I the only one who thinks Amazon Alexa is overrated? The only three voice features I use are: - Set the timer to 10 minutes (mostly pasta) - Wake me in 1 hour (for a nap) - How is the weather today? That's it and and I don't have a home which is connected to my phone like most out there. I think voice control only makes sense for commands where you don't need further interactions with the system, like watching a result on a screen or when driving a car. Then it's ok, otherwise I can't imagine any voice driven killer app.
- limeblack 9y ago
  It is overrated. I also just use Spotify/Google Play Music and what you listed above.

135 points by alttab 9y ago

Sounds like YouTube is due for an effective competitor. I see plenty of free porn sites offering reliable quality video streaming, so I don't know what we're waiting for.

fhood 9y ago

Google has been acting all Gates era microsofty lately.

wmccullough 9y ago
I was thinking Balmer but I’ll take it
- fhood 9y ago
  I could be mistaken, but I thought Gates was the one who set the standard for hyper aggressive anti competitive tactics.
  - samfisher83 9y ago
    I think Gates has rehabilitated his image a little, but he was a pretty ruthless business man. He completely destroyed Netscape using the windows monopoly.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      It's not popular to voice this, but some of Netscape's fall was due to self-inflicted wounds. In the end, they'd piled a package together called Netscaoe Communicator and it had become a bloated and buggy mess. They weren't alone in these regards, but they took it to new levels and QA was seemingly nonexistent. IIRC, even Opera went so far as to have an email client and newsgroups reader included. Netscape had both the email client and newsgroup reader, it also had a web authoring tool, conferencing software, Netcaster (which I never did figure out what it did), and a calendar. Heck, I think it even had other feature... It had all of those in what was theoretically a browser at a time when computers typically had RAM with double digit values in MB. Microsoft certainly didn't help, but I'm not sure that they really destroyed it.
      - bsharitt 9y ago
        I think the communicator thing came after Microsoft had already had Netscape in its sights. In response to Microsoft going after their browser with their monopoly, Netscape expanded their server offerings from web server to include other stuff that competed with Microsoft's BackOffice and they did Communicator to almost be a groupware suite. While Communicator may not have helped, the Netscape ship was already on fire for Microsoft attacks at that point.
        KGIII 9y ago
        Oh, Microsoft certainly helped sink them, but I'm of the opinion that Netscape was gleefully poking holes in their ship at the same time. I never did figure out what Communicator actually was meant to do. Someone likened it to ActiveScript (I think that's what it was called, IE's proprietary scripting stuff that required hosting on Windows). I was largely an Opera user back then. I still am, but that leads to a long off-topic conversation.
      - scarface74 9y ago
        People don’t understand how badly Netscape sucked around IE3. I remember seeing an article back in the 90s talking about how badly Netscape crashed on every platform it ran on. Netscape routinely bought down my Mac at the time.
- deleted 9y ago
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RestlessMind 9y ago
I'd say that's only fair for a ruthless adversary like Bezos, no? I already posted some examples of Amazon's behavior in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15349384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15349384

thebiglebrewski 9y ago

This is pretty lame because it's quite fun to ask for a video to be played.

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago

Sounds anticompetitive to me.

izacus 9y ago
About as anticompetitive as Amazon refusing to list Chromecast and Google Home devices, blocking installation of Prime Video on Android TV devices and several other customer hostile actions this spat has resulted in. Thanks to walled gardens, we're now pretty much stuck in a shitty situation noone else can fix.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  One of those players has a virtual monopoly on internet videos by subsidizing a money losing service with the virtual monopoly on search revenues. The other is a store that has lots and lots of competition.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    That "store" has a virtual monopoly on cloud services, which it uses to subsidize its unprofitable online store and logistics network. Edit: revenue is not profit!
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      Search revenues (major) vs YouTube revenues (minor). AWS revenues (minor) vs Store revenues (major) . I'm not trying to defend Amazon or anything, but you really are comparing very different situations.
  - criddell 9y ago
    Is YouTube a money loser? Their revenues are estimated to be around $10 billion. Surely their expenses can't be that high.
    - dottrap 9y ago

blahman2 9y ago

The story is actually on the verge.yay amp links.

bla2 9y ago

If the result here is cast support for Amazon video and YouTube working again, I'll take it. It's not like Amazon isn't doing the same thing.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
This fight started with Google. Google gates off their Android apps solely to manufacturers which agree to all of Google's demands on control of Android devices, things like the default search settings, which apps are preinstalled, etc. In order to comply with Google's terms, Amazon would've literally had to preinstall Google Play Books on their Kindles. This issue is the subject of the EU's next antitrust case expected to be settled this year. Amazon then in return chose to not sell Google products which were intentionally blocked from supporting Kindle products, which is why they won't sell the Chromecast, for instance.
- PeterisP 9y ago
  From the consumer perspective, Amazon being forced to preinstall Google Play Books on their Kindles sounds like a good thing, it only increases competition for the actual content.
  - sigstoat 9y ago
    on the other hand, book sales surely subsidize the hardware costs, so they'd have had to sell those android kindles for significantly more. which wouldn't have been a good thing for consumers. which one outweighs the other? beats me.
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    Which consumer has 2 thumbs and would rather have as little bloat pre-installed due to weird business requirements as possible? This guy!
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    I think there's a significant difference between preinstallation requirements and support. It'd be excellent if antitrust action against Google required they compulsorily offer Google Apps to any device which can technically install them, so that Amazon users could install Play Books if they wish. I do not think a company should be forced to preinstall a competitor's app. Imagine your Google Pixel being required to have the Windows Store installed. Wouldn't that be irritating?

amelius 9y ago

This shows how important competition is. If YT wasn't the only silo with our videos, then Google wouldn't be able to play this trick.

gourou 9y ago
I'm sure Amazon will strike back with Twitch
nannal 9y ago
there are competitors though, DTube (I'm affiliated), Vid.me, Vimeo
- Sargos 9y ago
  Vimeo is the only one in that list I've even heard of
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- adventured 9y ago
  There are no meaningful competitors to YouTube in most markets, that includes Vimeo. Google search has competitors too, none that are large or threatening enough to influence Google's product behavior around search. That's the key when it comes to competition. If a competitor is so small you can safely ignore them, they're a competitor in name only. The only potential threat to YouTube in the near-term, is Facebook's watch product.
  - AlphaSite 9y ago
    Twitch.
- yasserkaddour 9y ago
  Dailymotion
- 9y ago

pavel_lishin 9y ago

> Amazon’s implementation of YouTube on the Echo Show violates our terms of service, creating a broken user experience. Does anyone know what specific terms Amazon is allegedly violating?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rockostrich 9y ago
I think it was mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but the Echo Show was not implementing YouTube features such as subscriptions, next video recommendations, autoplay, etc.

sergiotapia 9y ago

@dang: Can you update the URL to the canonical url, not the Google AMP one?

linkbot 9y ago

Canonical link: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-amazon-echo-show https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-a... First-party AMP link: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-amazon-echo-show https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/9/26/16371292/goo... As-submitted link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-amazon-echo-show https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...

kettlecorn 9y ago

Something similar happened in the past where Google blocked Microsoft's YouTube app on Windows Phone. The reason was that the only official way Google allowed for non iOS/Android clients was if they used the HTMl API. Microsoft decided they wanted native performance so they wrote their own client to YouTube instead of using the HTML API. Microsoft's YouTube didn't play advertisements, which obviously Google wasn't ok with. So after some back and forth Google just said "No". I think Amazon probably made a similar mistake here.

Dylan16807 9y ago
> if they used the HTMl API That's not enough to satisfy Google. Not at all. They have far-reaching rules about what you do with the HTML.

ams6110 9y ago

They stopped supporting it on Wii consoles also. Yeah old tech I guess but I still use one for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and until recently YouTube. My guess would be it's harder to monitize when they don't have access to all the other stuff they can track in a browser or phone app.

digi_owl 9y ago
In particular after they launched Youtube Red...

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flyinghamster 9y ago

One more reason not to buy internet-enabled Things, as far as I'm concerned. I don't want my stuff held hostage by corporate disputes, regardless of who's "in the right" in a dispute. Of course, there's the side issue of having an always-on voice-controlled computer hooked up to my LAN, but that's a different rant.

niftich 9y ago
This kind of dispute existed long before IoT. For example, television channels routinely disappear from carriers like cable and satellite providers [1] as contract disputes go on longer and the existing contract expires. The disappearance of a channel is used as a tactic by the channel's owners to entice complaints by the carrier's customers to the carrier, hopefully convincing the carrier that it should try to get the channel back. The reality of the situation is that many things these days are fundamentally services instead of objects, and services are subjects to Terms of Service, and can often morph into something else or entirely disappear subject to the provider's strategies or whims. Internet-enabled devices merely enable this business model, which can be advantageous (e.g. it's really hard to consume live content without some kind of live content delivery; or, stuff I upload into a particular cloud is stored durably and resiliently with nice uptime SLAs and I can frequently access it from other devices; or, this device actually gets security updates instead of running an ancient 5-year-old kernel vulnerability), but also detrimental to the end-user (e.g. sometimes stuff disappears from Netflix and never comes back; online services that get shut down; DRM services that get shut down such that playback rights can no longer be renewed, etc). It seems to me that in your comment, Internet-enabled things are standing in for 'captive devices'. A Fire Stick, a Google Home, an Apple TV are tiny outposts of their host companies inside your house, connected through your LAN to their HQ. They're not actually yours in any meaningful sense. You can use them if you wish to take advantage of the services they provide, but those services are ephemeral and may be radically altered or entirely go away at any time, and the giant wall of text that we all click through warns us of that, even if we shrug and use it anyway because it gates features we really want. [1] https://consumerist.com/tag/blackouts/ https://consumerist.com/tag/blackouts/
- alexandercrohde 9y ago

gizmodo59 9y ago

This may be a bit off topic, but one of the extensions I loved was forced to be unpublished from Chrome Store. Its called Streamus and it plays audio of a Youtube video in the background and it was really good! Email Communications from Google: https://imgur.com/15gaOf6 https://imgur.com/15gaOf6 HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9873255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9873255 I wish this extension existed still when I can legally not watch a video with Youtube RED.

alexandercrohde 9y ago

Why do people keep focusing on which company to blame. It's not a Amazon VS Google issue. It's a Tech-Company VS Consumer problem. If you give me a shitty experience because you want to dominate the world, well too bad, I'm opting out. I couldn't care less who's fault it is, I am the customer, I am right, and if you want to earn my money it's your duty to deliver me a great experience.

epicide 9y ago
I wouldn't say it's their duty. If you're not paying them, they don't owe you anything. If you are paying them, they only owe you what they promised. However, your sentiment is correct since it is a two-way street. You don't owe them your time or money when they make stupid decisions. You just cut ties with them and they lose out.
- alexandercrohde 9y ago
  Yes, I pay $900 for a "smart tv" that locks me into their shitty apps. I buy an echo show and am now in the middle of some war. If you bought an iPod you were locked in to their store. fuck these devices. I'm not paying for less freedom.

jasode 9y ago

Fyi... a guess about the "terms of service" being violated: Author wrote: >, I’d guess Google very much wants features that it thinks are essential for YouTube’s future growth included, stuff like subscriptions, next video recommendations, autoplay, and so on. And similar excerpt from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/27/google-pulls-youtube-from-amazon-echo-show.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/27/google-pulls-youtube-from-am...: >The Echo Show had displayed YouTube videos without integral features, from video recommendations to channel subscriptions. For more context, the importance of the above "recommendation" features to Google in The Atlantic article and related HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14910125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14910125

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

Maybe it's time for a net neutrality requirement for market dominant services such as YouTube. If a user has access to content, then the user is allowed to request that content via the agent of their choice. Thus, what hardware to use to watch YouTube would be the consumer's choice.

VikingCoder 9y ago
...and then I can watch Amazon Prime on my Chromecast.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Amazon always wanted this (the fire sticks are a loss for them), but Google does not allow you to cast to Chromecast without having Play Services installed, Google doesn't allow Amazon to use Play Services on Kindle without removing all competing Amazon apps, and Amazon won't enable chromecast in their apps only for some users.
  - VikingCoder 9y ago
    "Amazon won't enable chromecast in their apps only for some users" Some? You mean, "All Certified Android users"? There's what, a billion devices like that?
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Which would basically be giving the middle finger to people who bought Amazon’s own products. Remember, Chromecast used to work on Kindle apps until Google banned that.
      - VikingCoder 9y ago
        ...probably because Amazon purposefully stopped Amazon Prime Video from working on Chromecast.

niftich 9y ago

YouTube has some fairly specific requirements that third-party clients must adhere to [1]. According to my recollection and Google's own revision history [2], this general form of the document dates to August 2016, since at the time I submitted it to HN [3], although no discussion ensued. In that update, they reformulated their Terms of Service and instead published a series of documents focusing on various topics that third-party developers must uphold to be able to serve as a YouTube client. This means that, as an easy example, clients which omit Google's ads [5] are running afoul of these policies. That being said, as with most ToS, YouTube reserves the right to terminate access to its API Services at any time [4]. [1] https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/required-minimum-functionality https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/required-minimum... [2] https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/revision-history https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/revision-history [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12409825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12409825 [4] https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/api-services-terms-of-service#termination https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/api-services-ter... [5] https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/developer-policies#i-additional-prohibitions https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/developer-polici...

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jackdh 9y ago

Looks like Google has not forgiven Amazon for pulling the chromecast's off of their store!

hota_mazi 9y ago

Considering that Google Home is completely black holed on Amazon, this kind of response only seems fair.

DerfNet 9y ago
All Google-branded products are blacklisted on Amazon. If you search for "Chromecast", your results will be Fire Sticks and then knockoff Chromecasts called "Anycast".
- kuschku 9y ago
  Not at all, many Google oroducts are available, and easily found. The Nexus devices, for example. But Google refuses to provide a way for Amazon to support Chromecast from all devices (including Kindles), so Amazon obviously had to make their own solution.
  - epicide 9y ago
    Search Amazon specifically for "chromecast" and see what you get. First result is a Fire Stick. "Amazon's Choice" -- okay, that's fair, I guess. Second result is a Roku Stick. Odd, but at least it's relevant? Third result thru the rest of the page is a bunch of blatant knockoffs of both styles of Chromecast. That's pretty shitty. Edit: to clarify, by "shitty" I mean "user hostile". They would rather push me towards a clear knockoff of what I'm searching for instead of the product I'm clearly searching for.
  - DerfNet 9y ago
    >The Nexus devices So you can buy used or refurbished phones from some third party retailer, great, but you cannot buy a Pixel or Chromecast or Google Home. Also, is it Google preventing Amazon from getting Prime onto their devices? I've always been under the impression this was Amazon's choice, as it helps them move more Fire sticks.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      > So you can buy used or refurbished phones from some third party retailer, great, but you cannot buy a Pixel or Chromecast or Google Home. New nexus devices are still for sale. > Also, is it Google preventing Amazon from getting Prime onto their devices? I've always been under the impression this was Amazon's choice, as it helps them move more Fire sticks. Correct, Google requires Play Services nowadays for Chromecast. Amazon Prime Video and Netflix both used to support Chromecast on Kindle devices and elsewhere, Google disabled that functionality, and Amazon removed it elsewhere. Fire sticks are sold at a loss.

RestlessMind 9y ago

Given the shady tactics pulled by Amazon [1], [2] when it comes to Google products, this move seems totally fair. [1] Promoting Amazon products while searching for "Google Home": https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/135-4089858-5408855?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=google+home https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/135-4089858-540885... [2] Not selling chromecast because it doesn't support Amazon video, which they themselves won't make available on chromecase

choward 9y ago
Sure it's fair from a company vs. company perspective. But as an end user, I don't give a crap. The more crap like this you pull the more I will hate your company. I hate when things are inconvenient and it's not because of a technical limitation.
- RestlessMind 9y ago
  Fair enough. But whom will you hate exactly? If one cannot see Youtube on Echo Show, I bet end users will hate Echo Show ("hey look, Youtube works fine on iPhone but not on this device") more than Youtube. Which is why we need some "net neutrality" kind of regulations as alluded to in another comment on this topic.
- deleted 9y ago
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katastic 9y ago
Everything is fair when Google does it, on HackerNews!
amrrs 9y ago
Indeed, anyone who remembers the fate of Diapers.com in the hands of Amazon would find no mistake from Google. It's just something Amazon has been practicing for so long.

amelius 9y ago

How do they detect that it's Echo? Can't Amazon send a different user-agent string?

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Well, Amazon is likely using Google's YouTube API. When you use the API, you have to have an API key registered with Google and send all of your API requests with it. Google likely just banned the key, and given the potential for legal action, no corporation is going to try and "trick" Google by registering a different API key, spoofing their identity, etc., particularly since it's high profile and very easy to identify that Amazon has done something of the sort.
- amelius 9y ago
  Ok. Can't they just run a browser inside the Echo? (So that the YT API is not used). PS: One more reason not to depend on APIs.

eksemplar 9y ago

Do people over 30 actually use YouTube? I see my younger colleagues on there a lot, but be yet to find anything that was worth my time unless it broke copyright laws.

linuxps2 9y ago
It's the DIY go-to for my parents and I'd argue most people - sure, my parents aren't subscribed to video game streamers or whatever you call people like h3h3 but if there's a channel similar to HGTV my mom is all over it
CaptSpify 9y ago
I use it all the time. There's a ton of educational material, news, how-to's, comedy, etc on it. Additionally, it's usually pretty easy to find copyrighted content on there
jkchu 9y ago
I would recommend checking out the channel "Primitive Technology". It is a good example of quality YouTube content.
- bduerst 9y ago
  Yeah, I was about to recommend this as well. There's a ton of good content, it's just weird with how hard it is to discover sometimes.

thinbeige 9y ago

Am I the only one who thinks Amazon Alexa is overrated? The only three voice features I use are: - Set the timer to 10 minutes (mostly pasta) - Wake me in 1 hour (for a nap) - How is the weather today? That's it and and I don't have a home which is connected to my phone like most out there. I think voice control only makes sense for commands where you don't need further interactions with the system, like watching a result on a screen or when driving a car. Then it's ok, otherwise I can't imagine any voice driven killer app.

limeblack 9y ago
It is overrated. I also just use Spotify/Google Play Music and what you listed above.