Google are fed up with Amazon, remove YouTube from Fire TV
In the new year Google will stop you streaming YouTube on your Fire TV, so no more lounging in front of cat videos for you Fire stick owners.
Starting January 1st for the indefinite future you will no longer be able to stream YouTube videos from Amazon Fire TV. This comes just weeks after YouTube reluctantly came back to Amazon’s new Echo Show speakers using the web player after abruptly taking themselves off the platform.
It’s still working for now and reportedly will until the end of December, though using YouTube on Fire TV will present you with a notification that YouTube will become unavailable from January 1st, 2018. The notification doesn’t say anything about returning to the Fire stick but does cheekily make mention of the fact there are plenty of other devices where YouTube is supported.
YouTube gave a statement to The Verge regarding the removal, showing that relationships between the two tech giants are shaky:
“We’ve been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other’s products and services. But Amazon doesn’t carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn’t make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest’s latest products. Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and FireTV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.”
It’s kind of funny seeing billion dollar companies get petty, but it’s also worrying for service neutrality. Up until now many devices support services from other companies because it adds value to their product and gives freedom to the customers. If companies begin looking out for their own backs only it may see a degradation in the possibilities of their products. But for now you just won’t be able to watch YouTube on Fire sticks next year.