5 ms·

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
      According to Eli the Computer Guy, it is something like: YouTube costs: $6.3 billion per year YouTube revenue: $4 billion So they are losing $2.3 billion per year. Eli the Computer Guy made a lot of waves around a year ago because his account was both incorrectly flagged for a "Community Strike" and his appeal was incorrectly dismissed which effectively left his channel dead in the water and he announced he was quitting. After outrage, a human finally stepped in and fixed the mess. Then later that year, his account was deleted by Google in the middle of a live stream without any explanation. (It was later restored, without explanation.) Eli, talking as business entrepreneur, has talked a lot about the problems of YouTube as a platform. He frequently does business analysis and goes over numbers. He has also broken down their cost structure, and yes, their expenses can really be that high. In addition to the massive number of videos that get uploaded every minute, they must also make multiple encodings of each one, and then all that needs to be mirrored to all the CDNs. (He was trying to figure out if he could do self-hosting...he felt if he just needed to make downloadable video files you watch offline, it can be done cheaply, but for streaming convenience, that's where things get expensive.) Eli also quoted Susan Wojcicki stating that they still see YouTube as in the investment stage, which means they still are pumping money into it with no expectation that it's going to turn a profit anytime soon.
      - criddell 9y ago
        $4 billion is the lowest estimate I've seen anywhere. Most analysts guess it's about twice that based on what they pay out in ad rev share. And yes - Wojcicki did say they are still investing in YouTube. Specifically she was talking about adding VR functionality. YouTube is probably profitable.
        dottrap 9y ago
        I've never seen anybody who's made a serious attempt to look at the numbers claim YouTube is profitable. All say the opposite. Some random examples: CBS Marketwatch: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-make-a-profit/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-... Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-goo... Motley Fool: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-isnt-profitable-so-what-should-google-inc.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-is... And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse.
  - hnlmorg 9y ago
    YouTube has a massive market share, I won't deny that. But it's far from a virtual monopoly. Even ignoring its numerous similar competitors like Vimeo, Metacafe and Daily Motion you still have Facebook.
  - curun1r 9y ago
    Amazon is far more than a store. For one, they are a monopoly on any content that's exclusive to Prime. And for a lot of us, that's meant choosing between our Prime accounts and our preferred streaming device. I personally would've probably chosen to buy an AppleTV except for the fact that Prime isn't available on the platform (though it appears that finally Amazon's spat with Apple on this front is coming to an end). Instead, I'm using a Roku because I don't want to reward Amazon for this crappy behavior by buying a FireTV. And Google isn't really a monopoly on internet videos. In addition to many smaller competitors, Facebook and Twitch are competitors. It's hard to find reliable numbers, but from what I've seen YouTube gets around 2/3 or the hours watched in this category (i.e. excluding streaming sites like Netlifx and Prime). That's big, but not monopoly big.
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      You misunderstand what we're talking about. Having the rights to a show is not having a monopoly, as we're talking about them. If not every single cable company in the world is somehow a monopoly. You can watch other shows. YouTube has an effective monopoly on internet videos. Almost ALL user generated videos, apart from few niches. They're using their dominance in one market to try and give themselves an advantage in another, which is usually illegal. Amazon, on the other hand, have plenty of competition. From Walmart to eBay. In videos there's Hulu and Netflix and Now TV, etc.
      - curun1r 9y ago
        > Having the rights to a show is not having a monopoly, as we're talking about them. If not every single cable company in the world is somehow a monopoly. Cable companies don't generally produce content. In the case of the ones that do (like Comcast, after their acquisitions), they've absolutely used their content for anti-competitive purposes. This is exactly what Amazon has done with Prime...tried to leverage it to support their less established products. And it's exactly what Google is doing with YouTube. Amazon is getting the same treatment they've given others. > You can watch other shows. And you can watch other user-uploaded videos. There's plenty of other sites that host user-generated videos. > YouTube has an effective monopoly on internet videos. Almost ALL user generated videos, apart from few niches. This is just incorrect. YouTube is the biggest, but it's nowhere near "almost all" videos. As I said before, the numbers I've seen are around 1/3 of the watched hours are on platforms other than YouTube with Facebook being the biggest. > Amazon, on the other hand, have plenty of competition. From Walmart to eBay. In videos there's Hulu and Netflix and Now TV, etc. Hulu and Netflix don't manufacture streaming devices like FireTV. Walmart and eBay don't stream video or sell their own devices. Google and Apple are the only competitors relevant to this discussion since they're the only ones that compete on multiple products. And all three have artificially limited their cloud services to lock consumers into their platforms. All three should be reined in. But acting like Amazon is somehow the helpless victim in all this is just hypocritical. They're getting the same treatment they've given Google and Apple.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Amazon's refusal to list Chromecast and Google Home was in response to Google's refusal to allow Amazon products like the Kindle Fire to run Google Apps and/or interact with those devices.
  - mikelward 9y ago
    Says who? Another theory is it's because Google (same as Apple) takes a share of any purchase you make on their platform. http://www.androidauthority.com/bezos-sheds-light-amazon-gave-cold-shoulder-google-chromecast-696039/ http://www.androidauthority.com/bezos-sheds-light-amazon-gav... https://lifehacker.com/amazon-banning-the-chromecast-is-unbelievably-stupid-1734105137/amp https://lifehacker.com/amazon-banning-the-chromecast-is-unbe...
    - scarface74 9y ago
      But Amazon Prime Video has been available for iOS devices since at least 2010. You have to buy videos on Amazon’s site though.
  - Sargos 9y ago
    Google didn't refuse to let Amazon use their apps. Tons of companies use their apps. There's a blanket license agreement that everyone signs. Every phone you buy has signed this agreement. Amazon simply refused to signed it and decided they wanted to own the whole system. Google didn't even have a say in this.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Google didn't refuse; Amazon can use them on the same terms as everyone else does. Amazon chooses not to, and that's their right, but that's not a Google decision. So, it boils down to Amazon refuses to list Chromecast and Google Home (but instead redirects searches to competitors) because Amazon refuses to use Chromecast or run Google Apps.
- kemerover 9y ago
  The EU is my last hope. Out of all governments and international entities, the EU is the only one I have a stretch of confidence in. The fact that Google and Amazon are located in the US means that the EU has nothing to lose if they want to regulate them. An additional fact that the EU consists of multiple countries that can bully each other to comply with their own laws makes it effective. I believe that if there is someone who can fix this shitty situation, it is the EU.
  - blibble 9y ago
    given complete freedom, the EU would probably ban youtube from the EU entirely as it doesn't meet the minimum requirement of 30% EU created content https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/25/eu_pegs_homegrown_netflix_quota_at_30pc/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/25/eu_pegs_homegrown_n...
    - kemerover 9y ago
      Nonsense, Youtube and Netflix offer two completely different services.
  - rayvd 9y ago
    Satire?
    - literallycancer 9y ago
      The EU has some issues, but their decisions (both of the commission and the parliament) regarding tech monopolies have been quite sane. The EU countries are also much better than the US at punishing companies for abusing personal information.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Poe's Law...
objclxt 9y ago
Why? Google would love nothing more than to get YouTube onto as much hardware as possible. They'd also love to have their ad revenue, and the Echo Show integration didn't show any ads. Is it anti-competitive to say "please show our ads if you want to integrate with our free video service"?

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
    According to Eli the Computer Guy, it is something like: YouTube costs: $6.3 billion per year YouTube revenue: $4 billion So they are losing $2.3 billion per year. Eli the Computer Guy made a lot of waves around a year ago because his account was both incorrectly flagged for a "Community Strike" and his appeal was incorrectly dismissed which effectively left his channel dead in the water and he announced he was quitting. After outrage, a human finally stepped in and fixed the mess. Then later that year, his account was deleted by Google in the middle of a live stream without any explanation. (It was later restored, without explanation.) Eli, talking as business entrepreneur, has talked a lot about the problems of YouTube as a platform. He frequently does business analysis and goes over numbers. He has also broken down their cost structure, and yes, their expenses can really be that high. In addition to the massive number of videos that get uploaded every minute, they must also make multiple encodings of each one, and then all that needs to be mirrored to all the CDNs. (He was trying to figure out if he could do self-hosting...he felt if he just needed to make downloadable video files you watch offline, it can be done cheaply, but for streaming convenience, that's where things get expensive.) Eli also quoted Susan Wojcicki stating that they still see YouTube as in the investment stage, which means they still are pumping money into it with no expectation that it's going to turn a profit anytime soon.
    - criddell 9y ago
      $4 billion is the lowest estimate I've seen anywhere. Most analysts guess it's about twice that based on what they pay out in ad rev share. And yes - Wojcicki did say they are still investing in YouTube. Specifically she was talking about adding VR functionality. YouTube is probably profitable.
      - dottrap 9y ago
        I've never seen anybody who's made a serious attempt to look at the numbers claim YouTube is profitable. All say the opposite. Some random examples: CBS Marketwatch: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-make-a-profit/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-... Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-goo... Motley Fool: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-isnt-profitable-so-what-should-google-inc.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-is... And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse.
- hnlmorg 9y ago
  YouTube has a massive market share, I won't deny that. But it's far from a virtual monopoly. Even ignoring its numerous similar competitors like Vimeo, Metacafe and Daily Motion you still have Facebook.
- curun1r 9y ago
  Amazon is far more than a store. For one, they are a monopoly on any content that's exclusive to Prime. And for a lot of us, that's meant choosing between our Prime accounts and our preferred streaming device. I personally would've probably chosen to buy an AppleTV except for the fact that Prime isn't available on the platform (though it appears that finally Amazon's spat with Apple on this front is coming to an end). Instead, I'm using a Roku because I don't want to reward Amazon for this crappy behavior by buying a FireTV. And Google isn't really a monopoly on internet videos. In addition to many smaller competitors, Facebook and Twitch are competitors. It's hard to find reliable numbers, but from what I've seen YouTube gets around 2/3 or the hours watched in this category (i.e. excluding streaming sites like Netlifx and Prime). That's big, but not monopoly big.
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    You misunderstand what we're talking about. Having the rights to a show is not having a monopoly, as we're talking about them. If not every single cable company in the world is somehow a monopoly. You can watch other shows. YouTube has an effective monopoly on internet videos. Almost ALL user generated videos, apart from few niches. They're using their dominance in one market to try and give themselves an advantage in another, which is usually illegal. Amazon, on the other hand, have plenty of competition. From Walmart to eBay. In videos there's Hulu and Netflix and Now TV, etc.
    - curun1r 9y ago
      > Having the rights to a show is not having a monopoly, as we're talking about them. If not every single cable company in the world is somehow a monopoly. Cable companies don't generally produce content. In the case of the ones that do (like Comcast, after their acquisitions), they've absolutely used their content for anti-competitive purposes. This is exactly what Amazon has done with Prime...tried to leverage it to support their less established products. And it's exactly what Google is doing with YouTube. Amazon is getting the same treatment they've given others. > You can watch other shows. And you can watch other user-uploaded videos. There's plenty of other sites that host user-generated videos. > YouTube has an effective monopoly on internet videos. Almost ALL user generated videos, apart from few niches. This is just incorrect. YouTube is the biggest, but it's nowhere near "almost all" videos. As I said before, the numbers I've seen are around 1/3 of the watched hours are on platforms other than YouTube with Facebook being the biggest. > Amazon, on the other hand, have plenty of competition. From Walmart to eBay. In videos there's Hulu and Netflix and Now TV, etc. Hulu and Netflix don't manufacture streaming devices like FireTV. Walmart and eBay don't stream video or sell their own devices. Google and Apple are the only competitors relevant to this discussion since they're the only ones that compete on multiple products. And all three have artificially limited their cloud services to lock consumers into their platforms. All three should be reined in. But acting like Amazon is somehow the helpless victim in all this is just hypocritical. They're getting the same treatment they've given Google and Apple.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Amazon's refusal to list Chromecast and Google Home was in response to Google's refusal to allow Amazon products like the Kindle Fire to run Google Apps and/or interact with those devices.
- mikelward 9y ago
  Says who? Another theory is it's because Google (same as Apple) takes a share of any purchase you make on their platform. http://www.androidauthority.com/bezos-sheds-light-amazon-gave-cold-shoulder-google-chromecast-696039/ http://www.androidauthority.com/bezos-sheds-light-amazon-gav... https://lifehacker.com/amazon-banning-the-chromecast-is-unbelievably-stupid-1734105137/amp https://lifehacker.com/amazon-banning-the-chromecast-is-unbe...
  - scarface74 9y ago
    But Amazon Prime Video has been available for iOS devices since at least 2010. You have to buy videos on Amazon’s site though.
- Sargos 9y ago
  Google didn't refuse to let Amazon use their apps. Tons of companies use their apps. There's a blanket license agreement that everyone signs. Every phone you buy has signed this agreement. Amazon simply refused to signed it and decided they wanted to own the whole system. Google didn't even have a say in this.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Google didn't refuse; Amazon can use them on the same terms as everyone else does. Amazon chooses not to, and that's their right, but that's not a Google decision. So, it boils down to Amazon refuses to list Chromecast and Google Home (but instead redirects searches to competitors) because Amazon refuses to use Chromecast or run Google Apps.
kemerover 9y ago
The EU is my last hope. Out of all governments and international entities, the EU is the only one I have a stretch of confidence in. The fact that Google and Amazon are located in the US means that the EU has nothing to lose if they want to regulate them. An additional fact that the EU consists of multiple countries that can bully each other to comply with their own laws makes it effective. I believe that if there is someone who can fix this shitty situation, it is the EU.
- blibble 9y ago
  given complete freedom, the EU would probably ban youtube from the EU entirely as it doesn't meet the minimum requirement of 30% EU created content https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/25/eu_pegs_homegrown_netflix_quota_at_30pc/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/25/eu_pegs_homegrown_n...
  - kemerover 9y ago
    Nonsense, Youtube and Netflix offer two completely different services.
- rayvd 9y ago
  Satire?
  - literallycancer 9y ago
    The EU has some issues, but their decisions (both of the commission and the parliament) regarding tech monopolies have been quite sane. The EU countries are also much better than the US at punishing companies for abusing personal information.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Poe's Law...

objclxt 9y ago

Why? Google would love nothing more than to get YouTube onto as much hardware as possible. They'd also love to have their ad revenue, and the Echo Show integration didn't show any ads. Is it anti-competitive to say "please show our ads if you want to integrate with our free video service"?