
Google pulls YouTube off the Amazon Echo Show - alttab
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/26/16371292/google-youtube-amazon-echo-show
======
RestlessMind
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_2/135-4089858-540885...](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/135-4089858-5408855?url=search-
alias%3Daps&field-keywords=google+home)

[2] Not selling chromecast because it doesn't support Amazon video, which they
themselves won't make available on chromecase

~~~
NicoJuicy
I agree, they are taking a lot of Google and are just trying to block them.
Not mentioning forking Android and all other things related also.

Google is way too nice for amazon

~~~
scarface74
Android is open source - what was wrong with them forking it?

Was Google wrong for forking WebKit?

~~~
NicoJuicy
Where are the changes of Amazon? You can still fork Chromium

~~~
scarface74
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200203720)

~~~
NicoJuicy
I'm not quit sure that by providing an answer, you could remove any doubt.

While they are required by the license to opensource their code, this is
perhaps the most user unfriendly method ( multiple builds per version per
device, no code history, ... - it's a mess)

Here is Chromium as you requested:

\- [https://cs.chromium.org/](https://cs.chromium.org/)

Here's the source code:
[https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/?sq](https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/?sq)
Here's the git:
[https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git)

------
niftich
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...](https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/required-minimum-
functionality) [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-
ter...](https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/api-services-terms-of-
service#termination) [5]
[https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/developer-
polici...](https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/developer-
policies#i-additional-prohibitions)

------
kettlecorn
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
> 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.

------
jasode
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-am...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/27/google-pulls-youtube-from-
amazon-echo-show.html):

 _> 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)

------
flyinghamster
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
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
Yes, but the point is, if you just bring your laptop with you then you get a
fully working experience without all this bullshit.

If I watch TV on my laptop, I don't have to worry about sticks and
compatibility.

If I get my cooking videos on my laptop, I don't have to worry about
compatibility.

If I listen to my audio on my laptop I don't have to worry about
compatibility.

~~~
epicide
This is hardly about devices, though. This is about content.

Also, your laptop is still a device. It just so happens to be more compatible.
Google could just as easily pull support for your laptop. It's highly unlikely
for YouTube, but not for other services.

Whether you like it or not, if you consume media that you didn't create, this
affects you.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
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
...and then I can watch Amazon Prime on my Chromecast.

~~~
kuschku
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
"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
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
...probably because Amazon purposefully stopped Amazon Prime Video from
working on Chromecast.

~~~
kuschku
No, because Google made the Chromecast library require Google Play Services.

At the same time, Netflix also stopped supporting Chromecast on many devices,
as did many other services. If you always had devices with Google Play
Services, you’d never notice, but if you didn’t, it was quite an annoying
change.

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

~~~
DerfNet
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
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.

~~~
DerfNet
>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
> 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.

~~~
scarface74
_Correct, Google requires Play Services nowadays for Chromecast._

How does that explain ChromeCast support for third party IOS apps?

~~~
kuschku
Google has a separate, proprietary, obfuscated, binary for iOS.

Amazon can’t exactly use this on their Kindle devices.

~~~
scarface74
Good point. I remember Marco Arment said he wouldn’t add ChromeCast support to
OverCast because he wasn’t comfortable adding a third party binary blob to his
code.

------
bla2
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
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
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.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Which consumer has 2 thumbs and would rather have as little bloat pre-
installed due to weird business requirements as possible? This guy!

------
thinbeige
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
It is overrated. I also just use Spotify/Google Play Music and what you listed
above.

------
amelius
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.

~~~
nannal
there are competitors though, DTube (I'm affiliated), Vid.me, Vimeo

~~~
Sargos
Vimeo is the only one in that list I've even heard of

------
pavel_lishin
> _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?

~~~
rockostrich
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.

------
gizmodo59
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.

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

------
fhood
Google has been acting all Gates era microsofty lately.

~~~
wmccullough
I was thinking Balmer but I’ll take it

~~~
fhood
I could be mistaken, but I thought Gates was the one who set the standard for
hyper aggressive anti competitive tactics.

~~~
samfisher83
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
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
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
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.

------
alexandercrohde
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
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
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.

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Sounds anticompetitive to me.

~~~
izacus
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
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.

~~~
criddell
Is YouTube a money loser? Their revenues are estimated to be around $10
billion. Surely their expenses can't be that high.

~~~
dottrap
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
$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
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-...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-reasons-youtube-still-doesnt-make-
a-profit/)

Business Insider: [http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-
goo...](http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-
money-2015-2)

Motley Fool: [https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-
is...](https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/01/youtube-isnt-
profitable-so-what-should-google-inc.aspx)

And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse.

~~~
criddell
Those are all from 2015 where the weren't profitable. Look for something more
recent.

[http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-
google-y...](http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-
youtube-20161027-story.html)

[http://fortune.com/2017/04/27/alphabet-earnings-up-as-ads-
su...](http://fortune.com/2017/04/27/alphabet-earnings-up-as-ads-surge-on-
youtube-and-mobile-devices/)

[https://seekingalpha.com/article/4096345-google-youtubes-
pot...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4096345-google-youtubes-potential-
exponential-growth-hidden-plain-sight)

[https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2017/0129/How-YouTube-
and...](https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2017/0129/How-YouTube-and-mobile-
search-drove-revenue-for-Google-s-parent-company)

[https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/youtube-will-
earn-9bn...](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/youtube-will-earn-9bn-in-
revenue-this-year-towering-over-spotify/)

[http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-youtube-
alphabet...](http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-youtube-
alphabet-q1-2017-1202401702/)

Even if YouTube isn't profitable today (and I think they are), the growth
indicates they will be soon.

> And none of these include this year's Adpocolypse.

That's true. That could be interesting for sure. The Variety link talks about
it a little bit.

------
ams6110
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
In particular after they launched Youtube Red...

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

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

~~~
ocdtrekkie
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
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.

------
alexandercrohde
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.

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

------
blahman2
The story is actually on the verge.yay amp links.

------
eksemplar
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.

~~~
jkchu
I would recommend checking out the channel "Primitive Technology". It is a
good example of quality YouTube content.

~~~
bduerst
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.

------
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