Banning competition you don't like is monoploistic for sure, but intentionally leaving counterfitters versions up and promoting them to searchers for those products so it damages your competitors brand is just straight up evil.
Home automation though is a great network effects play which is why amazon is doing this.
Big companies move slowly. I doubt Amazon could roll something like this out without 5+ years of development - possibly longer depending on how many times the department gets reorg'd.
[citation needed]
The only history i'm aware of with google blocking app development on windows phone is when they sent C&Ds to people developing apps that stripped all the ads off youtube and played background audio. They also consistently take down and block android apps that violate the TOS in this way, and i don't see anybody saying that google is trying to kill android.
https://mashable.com/2013/01/05/google-maps-windows-phone/#g...
Maps worked fine with exactly the same Trident engine on the desktop. Moreover, if you change the user agent string, maps also worked fine with Windows Phone.
https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4624706/google-blocks-win...
https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/15/4625502/microsoft-respond...
Google pulls this same bs with consoles as well, both PS4 and Xbox One (S/X) have a shitty HTML5 app that just doesn't fit well with rest of the system.
The background audio stuff, sure - that happened.
As long as this is true, Google is acting a lot more objectively than Amazon and its anti-competitive behavior.
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!
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you want to agree with a downvoted comment, simply say you agree and give some reasons why. Don't mention the downvotes.
This is - in other words - not the first time Amazon and Google got in a spat like this, and probably ain't the last.
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.
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.
Chromecast only offers an API if you already have a license to the Google Play Services, which does require Google’s permission.
And this license only allows sending Chromecast streams – it does not allow the FireTV to receive any.
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).
You can learn more here: https://www.howtogeek.com/214943/how-to-use-your-roku-like-a...
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.
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.
That's why breakups or heavy regulation needs to seriously considered for these companies. They have too much market power and have shown a proclivity towards abusing it in anti-competitive ways. The market has developed, and I don't think leaving it unregulated is working anymore.
The most ironic or telling thing about Amazon is that Walmart has now become the punchy underdog in comparison.
But on a more realistic note, Walmart has been pushing to be more innovative in the e-commerce ecosystem, purchasing various companies and opening new storefronts (like Allswell) to be more competitive.
There's also the advantage that they have in physical location.
Anyways, Disclaimer, I work for Walmart but my views and comments are my own.
Maybe a little trade war between the giants would help them realize this is stupid.
Amazon has gone mostly unnoticed, and exerts their power without fear of reprisal.
All that will do is push people to search Amazon first cutting Google out of the loop altogether.
Amazon may yet become that. They are not that yet. Walmart has an infamous reputation for being brutal with suppliers. That reputation is far beyond anything Amazon has yet become known for. Walmart also completely dictates who has access to their vast retail system, which is still roughly three times the size of Amazon. Simply put, Walmart's system is radically more restrictive in terms of providing selling access, than Amazon - and it's three times larger.
Half of Amazon's retail sales aren't even from Amazon, they're from independent sellers, and that percentage has been perpetually increasing. For Walmart, it's almost entirely them controlling the sales.
It has merely become popular lately to point the fear cannons at Amazon. It's a cultural mania. Last week it was Walmart everyone was terrified of. In the late 1990s, every headline was breathlessly touting how Walmart was going to take over all of retail and put everyone else out of business.
Do they have any traction in the Chinese market? I could easily see that one of the Chinese market places could make a push for the world market and be a serious contender.
Isn't Alibaba trying to do that? (I don't know much about it, but do hear its name every once in a while)
The bigger problem is that Amazon has set themselves up as the global arbiter of commerce, acting as a relatively neutral marketplace matching buyers to sellers worldwide, replacing many or most of the smaller commerce hubs and marketplaces that used to exist.
But once in that position, they exercise control over which products can be sold with the explicit intention of destroying competitors, replacing what would otherwise be a consumer favorite with their own inferior (according to market preference) alternate.
Everyone talks about monopolists and moral hazard and market manipulation, but Amazon seems to be the only modern company with the unique combination of dominance, confidence, and poor executive judgment to actually make it a consistent and overt company policy.