The block was because Echo Show devices don't support various features like ads. Also at the time, the YouTube block could be seen as retaliation for Amazon de-listing ChromeCast.
That was the first block. Then Amazon re-implemented it to just be a browser that views youtube.com so ads show just as on the normal website, and Google blocked their user agent.
This should not be downvoted. YouTube does not have a viable competitor because serving video is incredibly expensive.
Edit: This is being downvoted as well. Downvoted is for off-topic or inflammatory comments, not for comments you disagree with. If you disagree, leave a comment and explain why!
Is that true? What about Vimeo, Dailymotion, and the countless streaming sites which pop up to serve pirated content?
I don't doubt serving video to an audience as large as YouTube's is very expensive, but then with an audience as large as YouTube's there's a lot of money to be made. Bandwidth cost scales with views.
Surely YouTube's advantage is a network effect. They make it easy and quick to upload videos which then have the potential to be viewed millions or billions of times. Plenty of people use Vimeo, but there's not the same potential for virality.
Google blocked Echo from viewing Youtube in retaliation for Amazon not listing Chromecast. If Amazon agreed to list Chromecast, all the blocks could be eliminated and the war could end.
and amazon's rationale for not selling chromecasts was because the chromecast didn't support amazon prime video. which was, of course, a decision that amazon had made.
It wasn't Google that didn't support Amazon Prime Video, Amazon didn't add support. It was the same reason the Amazon gave for not selling the Apple TV 3rd and 4th generations. Apple worked with dozens of other providers to add apps to the 3rd gen ATV and a time could write an app for the 4th gen TV.
The proof is that there is now an Amazon Video app for the 3rd and 4th gen ATV. It was a surprise to almost everyone that Amazon/Apple ported Amazon Video to the 3rd Gen ATV after it had been discontinued for over a year.
I don't think it's Amazon decision to not allow Prime video on the google chromecast devices - it's available of consoles, Roku and other 3rd party devices.
I don't understand. karavelov said that Amazon Prime Video doesn't work with Chromecast. Are you saying that https://developers.google.com/cast/ is insufficient to allow Prime Video to work with Chromecast?
karavelov was not asking about FireTV receiving Chromecast. Does Roku receive Chromecast streams? If so, what's stopping FireTV, if not then it's not really relevant to this "targeted discrimination" discussion.
Correct. That SDK requires proprietary Google Play Services to be present on a device to allow Chromecast to work.
As the same Prime Video app has to work on Kindle devices, LineageOS/CopperheadOS/other third party ROMs, and on Google Play Android devices, it can’t require Google Play Services.
Regarding Roku:
Roku can not receive Chromecast streams, instead Roku, Twitch and several other companies have cooperated to work on a protocol competing with Chromecast, and Roku can receive those (as can a few of Amazon’s devices, and Amazon’s apps can send those streams as well).
> As the same Prime Video app has to work on Kindle devices, LineageOS/CopperheadOS/other third party ROMs, and on Google Play Android devices, it can’t require Google Play Services.
It can have additional functionality that only works when Google Play Services is available. Plenty of media apps run on Kindle devices as well as branded Android, and support Chromecast on Android but not Kindle.
Now, Amazon probably doesn't want to make an app that has features that work on branded Android but not Kindle, but that is a choice.
That's correct, but looking at how much money Amazon has spent trying to replicate Google's closed APIs on their Android version, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to expect an open protocol at least this time.
Amazon spent billions trying to work around Google's anticompetitive bullshit (something the open source community had to do as well with microG), and I think at least at some point Google should be held responsible for their proprietary bullshit.
Had Google actually open sourced Chromecast, on all sides, you'd have seen much higher adoption.
Chromecast support is available for a few non Google iOS apps. But I guess the blame is on Google for not opening up the protocol for nonstandard Android derived Os's.
