Amazon Banning Chromecast – Incredibly Stupid
Amazon will no longer sell Chromecast and Apple TV from the end of this month. And this is their right. But it’s also another in a long series of silly, anti-consumer moves that have now gone from annoying to downright ridiculous.
How the battle between Amazon and Google began
Chromecast users have been upset about the lack of Amazon Prime for a while, but Amazon and Google’s frustrations didn’t start with the Chromecast. Amazon’s ongoing battle with Google stems in large part from the fact that, unlike most manufacturers, Amazon wants to use Android while being completely independent of Google. When companies like Samsung, Motorola or LG create an Android device, they use the Google Play Store to distribute apps, and Google Play services to add functionality to their apps.
Amazon is a noticeable outlier. Instead of making Google’s version of Android, they made their own version for the Kindle Fire with its own non-Google app store . And in fact, Android was meant to be an open platform on which people could do just that. If you want to use Google services, there are some rules to follow, but anyone can create their own Android ecosystem if they so desire. This is what Amazon did.
The problem is that Google and Amazon still sometimes have to work together. Amazon has its own Play Store shopping app, but the company also wants to promote its own Android app store. However, Google does not allow redistribution of app stores in the Play Store. This is partly about protecting its home territory – after all, Walmart would never have allowed a Target Store inside Walmart – but also for security and compatibility reasons. Google cannot validate apps distributed through third-party app stores, so it’s risky to allow it.
Last year, Amazon tried to circumvent Google’s rules by sneaking its app store into Amazon’s main shopping app. In response, Google kicked him out of the Play Store . While the Amazon app eventually made a comeback (without the app component), the Amazon app will now prompt you to download a version with its bundled app store. The company took a similar approach to distributing the Amazon Video app when it finally came out.
All of this is a mess for consumers, but technically it’s not all that bad . Each company has its own reasons for doing what they do, and this creates a slight inconvenience for customers, but also fosters healthy competition. It could be worse. And if you have a Chromecast, it is.
Why Amazon Video Still Doesn’t Support Chromecasting
Since its release, Chromecast users have been complaining about the lack of Amazon Video, which exists on many other platforms including Xbox, PlayStation, and Roku.
At first it seemed like Amazon just wanted to nudge the Fire TV and its smaller cousin, the Fire TV Stick . But Amazon today went even further in its war against Chromecast by announcing that it would ban the sale of Chromecast and Apple TV . The reason, according to Amazon’s official statement , is that these devices “don’t interact well” with Prime Video:
Over the past three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. It is important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video so as not to mislead customers. Roku, XBOX, PlayStation, and Fire TV are great choices.
This is absurd.
The only reason Prime Video doesn’t exist on Chromecast is because Amazon just doesn’t want it. To imply that a Chromecast “doesn’t play well” with Prime Video is misleading at best. The Chromecast would be great at supporting Prime Video … if Amazon wanted to. Google allows any app developer to add Chromecast support to their iOS or Android app. There are no technical or political restrictions that prevent Prime Video from “interacting well” with Chromecast. And Amazon hasn’t made any statements explaining why they refuse to support it (although we can take the risk of guessing).
Moreover, to argue that customers will be “bewildered” that the Chromecast does not support Prime – which it does not claim – is ridiculous. Why would anyone expect that every product sold in the largest online store would also be compatible with their services? Amazon still sells PC games, and it doesn’t bother anyone that they don’t install on the Kindle Fire.
Of course, corporate competition is not new. You won’t find Android products in the Apple Store, and Google has no intention of selling Fire TVs in the Google Store. But Amazon isn’t just a tech maker – they want to be the store for everything . It is assumed that you can buy pretty much anything on Amazon. So it’s incredibly suspicious that they banned a product just because they decided not to build an app that supports it. This ban is entirely created by Amazon. Many Chromecast users (including a few Lifehacker employees) have wanted to use Prime Video for years, but can’t do it because Amazon doesn’t approve of our choice of streaming dongle. And this move clearly shows today that Amazon is not interested in supporting its customers by behaving well if that means they have no control over what is connected to your TV.