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Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

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Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

#51
post #37

This reminded me that I'm using Amazon too much lately. Time to give some juice to the competition, for my own future good.

A while back I noticed my last Amazon purchase was in late December 2014. I set a goal of not making a single Amazon purchase in calendar 2015. I'm on track and it hasn't been difficult at all.

The problem is AmazonGlobal. There's extremely little competition in this space. If I order from abroad (I am in Canada) then the courier will charge me a ridiculous amounts of money to process customs (http://www.ups.com/content/ca/en/shipping/cost/zones/customs... twenty percent, easily!). If I order from amazon.com / .de / whatever then at checkout I will pay all the necessary import fees and taxes (very low usually) and no customs processing fees. As far as I am aware, only eBay has a similar Global Shipping program.

Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

#52

Amazon can absolutely do this (but I think it is a slippery slope, possibly a sign of some bad changes ahead at amazon. They really should be neutral about the products listed on their site) but the reason they gave is kinda ridiculous [1]. I have a hard time believing the enough people don't know the difference between Prime & Netflix to make this a legitimate reason to stop selling Chromecast and Apple TV [1]: Over…

People have raised this issue before, but it hasn't been taken seriously:

If Google can't show its own products ahead of others in the Google search, why can Amazon show its own products ahead of all the other products on its store on its front-page?

Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

#55
post #27

>"Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime," Amazon said in the e-mail. "It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion." Google and Apple now both have open SDK's for creating streaming apps for their devices. Isn't the the fact these devices don't "interact well with Prime Video" entirely Amazon's fault?

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

#56
post #37

This reminded me that I'm using Amazon too much lately. Time to give some juice to the competition, for my own future good.

A while back I noticed my last Amazon purchase was in late December 2014. I set a goal of not making a single Amazon purchase in calendar 2015. I'm on track and it hasn't been difficult at all.

What do you use as alternatives, and for what categories of shopping?

Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

#57

So there goes my hopes of a Amazon Instant Video app for the new Apple TV. Not that my hopes were too high, but it would've simplified my cable cutting to reduce down to a single device. With native apps and AirPlay mirroring, the new Apple TV was set to be my family's single set top box, but we have a number of kid movies and shows on Amazon Instant Video, and last I checked, there's no support for AirPlay there, so…

Is this a new trend, using the emoji instead of spelling out "apple"? (It's just rendering as square-box TV in chrome on windows, which is really ironic given the subject of discussion.)

Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

#59
post #27

>"Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime," Amazon said in the e-mail. "It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion." Google and Apple now both have open SDK's for creating streaming apps for their devices. Isn't the the fact these devices don't "interact well with Prime Video" entirely Amazon's fault?

Exactly. I bet they'll capitulate eventually though. Prime Video membership seems like such a small thing to gain in exchange for staying out of the Apple TV store.

Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices

#60
post #24

Wouldn't it be great if Google de-indexed links to pages regarding Amazon Prime citing the same reason "in order to avoid customer confusion."?

That would instantly backfire on google. Amazon isn't a search engine that indexes the web. It's a ecommerce site, and ultimately is allowed to carry the products they want to carry. This is only specific to Apple & Google video streaming devices, not all Apple & Google products.

By the same logic, Google is a website, and they can publish what they wish.

This is a strange choice by Amazon. It's not at all clear that such a ban is in the interests of Amazon or their customers.

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