

Microsoft responds to YouTube demands, 'more than happy' to include ads - CloudNine
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/15/4334956/microsoft-responds-to-youtube-windows-phone-takedown-notice

======
zmmmmm
This is a really interesting battle of platform vs proprietary business going
on here. Is Youtube a platform? If so, then it should be offered to everyone
equally. That's almost the definition of a platform. But is it actually a
proprietary business that operates purely in the interests of its owner? In
that case it should be offered to whoever makes money for the owner. If you
are a content creator, Youtube tries very hard to look like a platform. But if
you are a business that wants to make money from showing the content - Youtube
looks like a proprietary business.

Lots of companies are trying to have it both ways these days. Apple, Twitter,
Facebook, Microsoft, and Google too - all want to say, "hey, here we have a
platform, you can come and develop here and make money without prejudice". But
at the same time they all want to say, "we make the rules, we decide who wins,
who loses and who's in and who's out and have no obligation to be fair about
it".

Once upon a time people screamed murder when a platform company started
weaving its own interests directly into its platform. For example, Microsoft
would get heavily criticised for using "secret" windows APIs in office. Not
that they didn't. But there was a general consensus that it was highly unfair
for MS to have access to APIs that others didn't.

These days this resistance has been broken down by companies like Apple and
Facebook, offering incredibly attractive "platforms" but without the
guarantees that a platform used to have. Would anybody complain now that Apple
uses a private API on the iPhone that 3rd party developers don't have access
to? These days people virtually insist on it, for security, if nothing else.

So to me this is one more aspect of this long and winding battle between
companies that want to have it all - pretend to offer "open" platforms but
keep the reigns under their control. And they are all guilty.

~~~
drewcrawford
> Once upon a time people screamed murder when a platform company started
> weaving its own interests directly into its platform. For example, Microsoft

When you say "screamed murder", do you mean that people got huffy about it on
the Internet? That's still the case. Exhibit A: your comment.

Did you mean "antitrust lawsuits used to be filed about it?" A random sampling
of any paragraph in the actual court decision should convince you that the
situation is not comparable to today:

> Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the
> world- wide market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. Every year for
> the last decade, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC
> operating systems has stood above ninety percent. For the last couple of
> years the figure has been at least ninety-five percent, and analysts project
> that the share will climb even higher over the next few years. - U.S. v.
> Microsoft, Findings of Fact

If at some point Apple's share of the phone market, or even of the ARM-based
phone market, exceeds 90 percent, over a period of a decade--by all means,
let's file a lawsuit about it.

------
iamshs
Sweet mother of god, what a move to pull. Well played. Looks like Microsoft is
pulling the same hand, as Google did with EAS some months ago. Also
considering MS has been asking for Google's help since 2010. Brilliantly done.

~~~
CloudNine
I wonder if Bill Gates was involved in this idea. He has the level of cunning
needed to pull this off.

Using Google's pretense of "openness" against itself.

~~~
iamshs
It actually is very interesting move to pull. The reply is just so elegant, it
is beautiful. They were being strangled by Google, there are no Google apps on
MS platforms (WP or OS). And on a day of Larry Page's rheotoric about being
friendly to each other. This is Oh Snap moment.

~~~
mehrzad
>there are no Google apps on MS platforms (WP or OS)

Chrome? Play Music Manager? I guess those don't really count.

~~~
iamshs
Metro apps. See the new hangouts app? It's not on WP.

~~~
iamshs
@cma: No. Metro apps cannot be sideloaded if you are not a Dev. Tell me a
store which does not take a cut? Steam, iOS, Nook, Amazon, Play store?
Besides, Google's apps on iOS are free.

~~~
arjie
I think AppBrain takes no cut.

------
ImprovedSilence
I've been off all microsoft products for a long time, but I think I might be
willing to give their phone a try. I'm not completely sold on android or apple
at the moment, and Msoft's design does seem to be taking the lead (flat ui),
and presenting a different option . Plus, before the android/ios wars, I
always thought Nokia made the most brilliant phones, and i'm kinda glad to see
them back in the game.

~~~
blub
If you want a phone that syncs your data to the cloud without your permission,
WP is perfect. Android's also very good at this, but if you have lots of time
and some skills you can root it and probably fix the issue.

~~~
Gmo
No it's not. I have a Lumia 920 and none of my data is synced to SkyDrive.

~~~
blub
I see. Are you absolutely sure? Did you do anything special?

The only hack that I know is setting the server to 127.0.0.1 in the people hub
so that it doesn't sync. I have seen multiple official statements from MS that
this is not supported and the syncing is mandatory.

Could you provide a link or guide on how to disable sync'ing in MS Office and
for the contacts? Thanks.

------
DigitalSea
Perfect example of stacking the deck in your favour. If Google says no, they
look like hypocrites who aren't practising what they preach. Very gutsy move
Microsoft, well played.

~~~
myko
No, it's actually pretty silly of Microsoft. They're blatantly disregarding
YouTube's TOS by allowing users to download videos within the app - I'm just
shocked this made it past Microsoft legal.

~~~
cooldeal
I believe the conversation would gone like this:

Microsoft Legal: No way! We may get sued and lose!

Microsoft Strategy: Okay, I see, how much will we lose?

Microsoft Legal: Maybe 2 Billion in damages, maybe 5 Billion with a big B in
the worst case.

Microsoft Strategy: Okay, Finance Department how much cash do we have?

Microsoft Finance: 75B billion cash in our bank account.

Microsoft Strategy to Dev Division: Okay, make the YouTube app, oh and by the
way stick a download button in there too.

------
greatergoodguy
Can google selectively pick which partners will get access to their service?

I want to understand the legal answer and the ethical answer.

~~~
venomsnake
The legal answer is that the Supreme Court has treated anything written by a
corporation on a sheet of paper as a holy scripture (Citizen United, Monsanto,
the class action suits waivers) so chances are it will be - they can do
whatever they want.

The ethical answer is that when a company becomes of a certain size it happens
to be a part of the national infrastructure so they should give FRAND access
to their services.

------
rtcoms
Isn't Microsoft released an ad(scroogled) some days ago attacking Google that
they track users. So now Microsoft doesn't have any problem if Google track
Microsoft users.

What an irony !

------
belorn
What a move... now if this only worked on movie companies.

Host a bunch of infringing works, and when the takedown notice come, say that
you are "more than happy" to pay license fee. The only thing one need is to
get the same access and license deal that netflix got. Anything else would be
unfair.

------
wfunction
It's quite likely that they're only "more than happy" to include advertising
if they can also reap some profits from the ads shown to their "mutual
customers". (Why else would you word it that way?)

------
cooldeal
From Google's About page:

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it
universally accessible and useful."

Last time when Google was intentionally blocking Google maps and then
deprecated ActiveSync on Windows Phone someone suggested Google should updated
it to the following:(which seems quite true given how much of the world's
crowdsourced video content is on YouTube):

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it
universally accessible and useful, except on Windows Phone".

Also, I see this post being flagged a lot, stay classy, Google fans on HN.

~~~
manojlds
How are people able to see if a post is being flagged a lot? Is there a karma
level for that?

~~~
tspiteri
The ranking in the front page is affected by flagging. Usually, the more
points a post has and the more recent it is, the higher it is ranked. But
flagging pushes it down. So if you see a 100 point post submitted 10 hours ago
above a 150 point post submitted 6 hours ago, it means that the 150 point post
got flagged a lot.

------
recoiledsnake
Looks like this submission is getting flagged as well. I guess this story
really isn't showing Google is good light if Google fans are in such heavy
damage control mode. It looks like they have a veto on what appears on the HN
front page.

Look, you may not like Microsoft and even its response but why try to bury a
legitimate news item? Are there not enough Google I/O posts related stories
topping the the front page?

Can anyone who flagged this and the other related stories come out and tell us
why they feel the need to abuse their moderator privileges?

From the HN guidelines:

"If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and
clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma
threshold.)"

Looks like PG didn't guess that people with good karma will want to abuse it
to bury stories they don't want others to see in such a constant way.

~~~
iamshs
What? How is it being flagged? I think the community on here is balanced, and
discussions are free of any vitriol.

~~~
jlgreco
Hacker News removes users' ability to flag articles if they abuse it. Just for
shits and giggles I am going to perform an experiment: every time someone
shrilly declares that MS articles are being mercilessness flagged by upset
Google employees, I am going to flag the article as well.

My money is on my flagging ability not remaining intact for very long.

~~~
iamshs
And how will that be a good experiment at all with one data point? Are you
trying to find out the criteria of how they decide to remove the ability? I do
not think it is limited to MS articles only.

~~~
jlgreco
Obviously it cannot be a good experiment. It is for shits and giggles.

I never bother to flag anymore, if I manage to have the ability removed by
only flagging MS articles over the next few days then I am going to take that
as a mild indication that all of the people whining about MS posts being
flagged really just have persecution complexes and are not actually onto
anything. If I don't have the ability removed, that suggests nothing at all.

------
CloudNine
Discussion of Google's takedown notice is here.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715168>

