Google says it’s taking this desperate step because of Amazon’s recent delisting of new Nest products like Nest Secure and the E Thermostat and the company’s long-running opposition to sell Chromecast or support Google Cast in any potential.
But negligent of the public stance each business takes over the next few days, it’s their mutual consumers who are unfairly getting jerked around. YouTube is a foundation of any living room streaming device, and for Google to quickly decide to strip it from millions of existing Fire TV owners assuming no adjustment is reached by January 1st is shameful. YouTube is video on the internet. Period. It’s also homely to beloved creators, and Google’s choice will soon rob them of viewers.
Kicking the Echo Show to the curb doesn’t strike nearly as many people, but it still hurts since watching cooking videos from YouTube on the Alexa screen in your kitchen looked like one of the perfect uses for the thing! But since Google is being precise and needlessly obsessive over every detail of how the app purposes on Amazon’s device, that’s no longer possible. This is the second time YouTube has left the Show. Google said the first emphasis had a “broken user experience,” which appeared in a revised version that was essentially the full-blown desktop website. That’s not exactly ideal from a usability standpoint.
“Echo Show and Fire TV now display a regular web view of YouTube.com and point consumers directly to YouTube’s existing website,” the Amazon spokesperson said. But sources familiar with Google’s situation say the company takes issue with Amazon loading its own voice controls on top of YouTube. That breaks section 4b of YouTube’s terms of service, which reads “you agree not to alter or modify any part of the service.”
Google is trading Amazon’s devices real damage by banning YouTube, and you could honestly argue it has the upper hand here.
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