161–170 of 545 posts
Let the evilness begin! Seriously though, isn't this just asking for an anti-trust investigation? Especially in the EU, where it is more focused on competition inhibiting actions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Within 3 minutes of reading this, I canceled my Amazon Prime account. The fact they require sideloading APKs for streaming video on Android devices, and even then only support SD quality was annoying. This just tells me they have no intention whatsoever of improving the situation. I guess I'll use Google Express now.
I believe they required sideloading because of Google Play's restrictions on selling items / subscriptions without giving Google a cut.
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…
Recall that they've also used the power of their catalog to fight publishers with whom they had pricing model disagreements (e.g. Hachette) by disallowing pre-orders of popular upcoming titles from those publishers.
I mean :
- They piss their customers
- They piss their merchants, probably killing some businesses along the way
- They instill fear in their potential merchants. I was vaguely thinking about selling stuff on amazon mind you, and worried a bit about being locked in. Well, those fears are much more real now.
- They piss google and apple, obviously. They're competitors of course but it's a bit of a harsh move, in fact it looks like a war declaration.
- They have a very special place as the biggest merchant on the internet, people watch them and some fear for good reason what they could become (like the only e commerce platform on the internet), and what it could mean in term of market manipulation opportunities. Well they just gave those guys lots of cookies.
- They lose sales, obviously
All that for what ? Well that's ... not clear.
Ironically, Netflix is running on AWS.
Amazon and Google are both ruining Android. Amazon for apps that arbitrarily only work on their hardware is awful, forcing customers to buy multiple devices (no Amazon Video on the Nexus Player). Google for not making the play store installable on non-Google approved hardware. At least the Amazon app store is made available as a download from Amazon even if Amazon Video won't work on your device.
Look at Microsoft and how much they suffered at the hands of terrible OEMs.
I don't think this move is in Amazon's best interests long term. Their competitive edge with Prime is that I go to them first because I assume they'll have what I want, at a fair price and the highest level of convenience. If they are no longer the "Everything Store" then they won't be where I go to for everything...
I have found them to be constantly more expensive on tools vs Home Depot and Lowes. I used to think that Amazon would pretty much aways give me the best price (+/- random sites that may or may not be shady), but when it comes to any type of tools that has not been the case. I have also found Costco to be often times cheaper for household supplies such as paper towel, etc. Amazon's main benefit is convenience, but the…
They refuse to make the Prime Video app available on the Play Store, they refuse to add Chromecast support, and now they refuse to even sell Chromecast because of their own decision to not support it? I've just canceled my Prime subscription and I hope a few others do as well.
I thought the reason the video app wasn't in the Play store was due to them having to give Google a cut of every sale if they did that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Google and Apple now both have open SDK's for creating streaming apps for their devices." And with what provisos about selling through those apps? This is not a technical issue. Amazon just doesn't want to give up 30% of GMS (which would be an even higher % of its margins) on digital media.
I don't think that's the case because Prime Video is on Xbox and Playstation, where they instruct you to go to amazon.com to buy/rent videos. It could work exactly the same way on Apple TV. So why are they not on it? It must be another reason... But what?