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It is so dumb and twisted that there even needs to be a deal. Any web browser can hit youtube, you can probably get to youtube via a web browser anyway on a ro

It is so dumb and twisted that there even needs to be a deal. Any web browser can hit youtube, you can probably get to youtube via a web browser anyway on a roku, if not they could in principle do that. Also dumb and twisted that as a paying youtube subscriber, I could buy a computer (a roku) and not be allowed to access youtube on it. Do better, tech.

_ea1k 5y ago
Yeah, I want something like an OpenRoku standard for TV service providers, and equal access from many hardware platforms. But these companies are moving steadily towards locking things down behind anticompetitive agreements.
j1elo 5y ago
Tech is fine. It's humans that get in the middle. And where I say "humans" you might very well read "money". So, Do better, people.
- jermaustin1 5y ago
  I feel like this comes down to the same issue that every platform gets into with IAP. They want a cut because running a platform is expensive, but the apps on the platform don't want to pay for it, and talks break down. Roku, like Apple, like Google, like Salesforce, like Patreon, like all platforms with payments, rely on their cut of the IAP to make money. Roku, like Google, like Patreon, like all other platforms that are also on platforms, dont want to pay X% to the platform, they want a special rate.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    The actual problem is that running a platform isn't that expensive -- there are a hundred tiny Linux distributions that do it on essentially volunteer work -- but once you control a platform with a large number of users you can use it to shake down anyone who wants to reach them. And then people object to the shakedown and do whatever they can to try and stop it.
    - jermaustin1 5y ago
      But that is different. You cannot compare free and voluntary with commercial services. If you had to pay for those volunteers to maintain at a market rate, all that free stuff would be prohibitively expensive on a per user basis. I agree that Roku, time and time again, has been too aggressive in their tactics to extract maximum profit from their users via the apps they consume (HBO disappeared for a while last year, and I think Showtime did as well), but they do have COSTS they have to cover, and profits they have to make to maximize value to shareholders. Is this a perfect system, no, but it is the system that exists currently.
      - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        > If you had to pay for those volunteers to maintain at a market rate, all that free stuff would be prohibitively expensive on a per user basis. These "platforms" start out with an existing open source operating system (BSD or Linux) that already works and has done so for decades. Then they add some features to it that represent a relatively modest one-time modification to the work that has already been done, after which further necessary changes amount to primarily security updates. Corporations often spend massive resources doing further rearranging on an ongoing basis, but nobody really needs or wants that. If you gave people the choice between the current version of a given platform or the version from 2009 but with security updates, most people would shrug and have no strong preference, if not prefer the older one. But also, YouTube is a platform and it goes both ways. Why should anybody need a special deal to display a website on their device?
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      Think about what you're saying dude: Hundreds of tiny distributions rely on unpaid volunteers to run a platform. A platform with questionable quality and no real support. Yeah, it isn't expensive under those criteria.
      - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        > A platform with questionable quality and no real support. The quality of tiny platforms is often higher than the larger ones because their maintainers will actually accept patches and one of the people having the problem will know how to code, whereas consumers reporting bugs to large vendors is more like adults writing letters to Santa Clause. Anybody can get support for anything by paying someone to support it. For nearly everyone outside of large corporations, the cost of this exceeds the benefit, because 99% of your problems will be solved by whatever comes up when you type the problem into a search engine and the last 1% won't be worth the cost of eliminating.
kgwxd 5y ago
I find it more annoying that standard websites don't just work on a Roku. I'd rather Google didn't have to maintain yet another app for yet another proprietary device, it should all just be build on open standards.
- dr_kiszonka 5y ago
  Agreed. As a workaround, when a video provider is not supported on Roku, what I do is stream video directly from my Android phone to Roku using a free app which is available on both platforms. It is not as convenient as having a dedicated Roku app, but it works.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Browsers are god-awful slow on the hardware that ships with smart TVs. I tried it on a LG TV that ships with a browser. Horrid. I'm still wondering why the keyboard doesn't work for all the different channels/apps on my smartphone remote for the Roku. Streaming via smart TV is a major regression as far as UX.
  - kgwxd 5y ago
    Yeah, I guess you have a point there. My R-Pi can't do video in the browser in even a remotely usable quality and that cost more than the Roku box I have.
- phh 5y ago
  YouTube app for TVs is a web app everywhere, including Android TV. The twist? Google requires OEM not to use a standard browser, they require OEMs to use Cobalt, yet another google web browser (whose feature set is too small to actually use as a Web browser)
mdasen 5y ago
The issue is that companies like Roku are increasingly making their money by having companies like YouTube TV pay them to carry their apps. Likewise, there are lots of things about these systems that can fall under negotiations. For example, what analytics does Roku get access to for actions taken within apps? Does Roku get insight into what YouTube videos you're watching? 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 Roku complaints about Google have included that Google wants all Roku devices to support the AV1 codec - which Google's own Chromecast with Google TV doesn't support. I think the "dumb and twisted" goes both ways. 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. It's dumb and twisted that Google wants a dedicated row for YouTube search results rather than neutral search results.
- judge2020 5y ago
  > 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944837
  - Pxtl 5y 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.
AJ007 5y ago
Roku should add a one click cancel button for YouTube Premium.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
graton 5y ago
As a note. The article is about "YouTube TV" not "YouTube". I missed it the first time.
- LocalH 5y ago
  This is not totally clear. While the only references I can find to this quote are in articles about the situation, I honestly can not tell whether the YouTube app is nonetheless included in terms of availability. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if it was, this kind of thing happens all the time in these disputes. "Agree to our terms or we remove all our channels". >"We are, however, giving Roku the ability to continue distributing both YouTube and YouTube TV apps to all existing users to make sure they are not impacted."
- ec109685 5y ago
  “… new Roku devices will continue to be unable to download YouTube or YouTube TV apps”
mywittyname 5y ago
This confuses me too. Presumably they can install a build of Chrome on the box and have the "app" be `chrome youtube.com`. Though, I can understand in principle why they don't do this, why give traffic to jerks?
tootie 5y ago
A few years ago I had a FireTV and Amazon was having the same dispute over youtube. FireTV had a few browser options at the time (Firefox or Amazon Silk) and either one could load youtube. In fact, the youtube app for OTT devices was just a wrapped web experience hosted on youtube.com/tv so it was nearly identical to the app experience.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
You go a little further... Google can decide to specifically ban you personally from accessing YouTube.
captn3m0 5y ago
You can still use YouTube TV (The old leanback interface) if you set your user agent correctly to spoof Tizen Smart TVs. Works almost well enough with keyboard/controller navigation but some keys are mapped incorrectly. /usr/bin/chromium --start-fullscreen --user-agent="smarttv;applewebkit;tizen" "https://youtube.com/tv"
- sgerenser 5y ago
  How do I execute /usr/bin/chromium on my Roku?
zapataband1 5y ago
i wonder if apple will strike a deal with hbo or some dumb shit. hbo available on macs only. love our corporate controlled media
- enos_feedler 5y ago
  actually Apple is more likely to recognize the bullshit situation we are in with smart tvs these days and just fix it. They will offer a very closed, but functional tv service that has the things you want, with the choices you want to make, without the garbage, for a premium price, accessible on premium hardware (and other devices where possible).
otterley 5y ago
Putting a full-fledged browser into a Roku device would require significantly more powerful hardware and would make it much more expensive as a result. There's also the question of what the UX would be. Let's not oversimplify the solution to complex business problems.
seoulmetro 5y ago
Why can't you access YouTube on it? Can't you just open the browser and type YouTube.com?

_ea1k 5y ago

Yeah, I want something like an OpenRoku standard for TV service providers, and equal access from many hardware platforms. But these companies are moving steadily towards locking things down behind anticompetitive agreements.

j1elo 5y ago

Tech is fine. It's humans that get in the middle. And where I say "humans" you might very well read "money". So, Do better, people.

jermaustin1 5y ago
I feel like this comes down to the same issue that every platform gets into with IAP. They want a cut because running a platform is expensive, but the apps on the platform don't want to pay for it, and talks break down. Roku, like Apple, like Google, like Salesforce, like Patreon, like all platforms with payments, rely on their cut of the IAP to make money. Roku, like Google, like Patreon, like all other platforms that are also on platforms, dont want to pay X% to the platform, they want a special rate.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  The actual problem is that running a platform isn't that expensive -- there are a hundred tiny Linux distributions that do it on essentially volunteer work -- but once you control a platform with a large number of users you can use it to shake down anyone who wants to reach them. And then people object to the shakedown and do whatever they can to try and stop it.
  - jermaustin1 5y ago
    But that is different. You cannot compare free and voluntary with commercial services. If you had to pay for those volunteers to maintain at a market rate, all that free stuff would be prohibitively expensive on a per user basis. I agree that Roku, time and time again, has been too aggressive in their tactics to extract maximum profit from their users via the apps they consume (HBO disappeared for a while last year, and I think Showtime did as well), but they do have COSTS they have to cover, and profits they have to make to maximize value to shareholders. Is this a perfect system, no, but it is the system that exists currently.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      > If you had to pay for those volunteers to maintain at a market rate, all that free stuff would be prohibitively expensive on a per user basis. These "platforms" start out with an existing open source operating system (BSD or Linux) that already works and has done so for decades. Then they add some features to it that represent a relatively modest one-time modification to the work that has already been done, after which further necessary changes amount to primarily security updates. Corporations often spend massive resources doing further rearranging on an ongoing basis, but nobody really needs or wants that. If you gave people the choice between the current version of a given platform or the version from 2009 but with security updates, most people would shrug and have no strong preference, if not prefer the older one. But also, YouTube is a platform and it goes both ways. Why should anybody need a special deal to display a website on their device?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Think about what you're saying dude: Hundreds of tiny distributions rely on unpaid volunteers to run a platform. A platform with questionable quality and no real support. Yeah, it isn't expensive under those criteria.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      > A platform with questionable quality and no real support. The quality of tiny platforms is often higher than the larger ones because their maintainers will actually accept patches and one of the people having the problem will know how to code, whereas consumers reporting bugs to large vendors is more like adults writing letters to Santa Clause. Anybody can get support for anything by paying someone to support it. For nearly everyone outside of large corporations, the cost of this exceeds the benefit, because 99% of your problems will be solved by whatever comes up when you type the problem into a search engine and the last 1% won't be worth the cost of eliminating.

kgwxd 5y ago

I find it more annoying that standard websites don't just work on a Roku. I'd rather Google didn't have to maintain yet another app for yet another proprietary device, it should all just be build on open standards.

dr_kiszonka 5y ago
Agreed. As a workaround, when a video provider is not supported on Roku, what I do is stream video directly from my Android phone to Roku using a free app which is available on both platforms. It is not as convenient as having a dedicated Roku app, but it works.
datavirtue 5y ago
Browsers are god-awful slow on the hardware that ships with smart TVs. I tried it on a LG TV that ships with a browser. Horrid. I'm still wondering why the keyboard doesn't work for all the different channels/apps on my smartphone remote for the Roku. Streaming via smart TV is a major regression as far as UX.
- kgwxd 5y ago
  Yeah, I guess you have a point there. My R-Pi can't do video in the browser in even a remotely usable quality and that cost more than the Roku box I have.
phh 5y ago
YouTube app for TVs is a web app everywhere, including Android TV. The twist? Google requires OEM not to use a standard browser, they require OEMs to use Cobalt, yet another google web browser (whose feature set is too small to actually use as a Web browser)

mdasen 5y ago

The issue is that companies like Roku are increasingly making their money by having companies like YouTube TV pay them to carry their apps. Likewise, there are lots of things about these systems that can fall under negotiations. For example, what analytics does Roku get access to for actions taken within apps? Does Roku get insight into what YouTube videos you're watching? 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 Roku complaints about Google have included that Google wants all Roku devices to support the AV1 codec - which Google's own Chromecast with Google TV doesn't support. I think the "dumb and twisted" goes both ways. 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. It's dumb and twisted that Google wants a dedicated row for YouTube search results rather than neutral search results.

judge2020 5y ago
> 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944837
- Pxtl 5y 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.

AJ007 5y ago

Roku should add a one click cancel button for YouTube Premium.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

graton 5y ago

As a note. The article is about "YouTube TV" not "YouTube". I missed it the first time.

LocalH 5y ago
This is not totally clear. While the only references I can find to this quote are in articles about the situation, I honestly can not tell whether the YouTube app is nonetheless included in terms of availability. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if it was, this kind of thing happens all the time in these disputes. "Agree to our terms or we remove all our channels". >"We are, however, giving Roku the ability to continue distributing both YouTube and YouTube TV apps to all existing users to make sure they are not impacted."
ec109685 5y ago
“… new Roku devices will continue to be unable to download YouTube or YouTube TV apps”

mywittyname 5y ago

This confuses me too. Presumably they can install a build of Chrome on the box and have the "app" be `chrome youtube.com`. Though, I can understand in principle why they don't do this, why give traffic to jerks?

tootie 5y ago

A few years ago I had a FireTV and Amazon was having the same dispute over youtube. FireTV had a few browser options at the time (Firefox or Amazon Silk) and either one could load youtube. In fact, the youtube app for OTT devices was just a wrapped web experience hosted on youtube.com/tv so it was nearly identical to the app experience.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

You go a little further... Google can decide to specifically ban you personally from accessing YouTube.

captn3m0 5y ago

You can still use YouTube TV (The old leanback interface) if you set your user agent correctly to spoof Tizen Smart TVs. Works almost well enough with keyboard/controller navigation but some keys are mapped incorrectly. /usr/bin/chromium --start-fullscreen --user-agent="smarttv;applewebkit;tizen" "https://youtube.com/tv"

sgerenser 5y ago
How do I execute /usr/bin/chromium on my Roku?

zapataband1 5y ago

i wonder if apple will strike a deal with hbo or some dumb shit. hbo available on macs only. love our corporate controlled media

enos_feedler 5y ago
actually Apple is more likely to recognize the bullshit situation we are in with smart tvs these days and just fix it. They will offer a very closed, but functional tv service that has the things you want, with the choices you want to make, without the garbage, for a premium price, accessible on premium hardware (and other devices where possible).

otterley 5y ago

Putting a full-fledged browser into a Roku device would require significantly more powerful hardware and would make it much more expensive as a result. There's also the question of what the UX would be. Let's not oversimplify the solution to complex business problems.

seoulmetro 5y ago

Why can't you access YouTube on it? Can't you just open the browser and type YouTube.com?