After reading Bezos' biography a few weeks ago, this sounds like something that he would never, ever do. Amazon is the everything store. What's going on?
Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
241–250 of 545 posts
Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does anyone here have a Kindle Fire Stick? It seems to already have dual band, has double the memory/ghz of a chromecast and most importantly - does not need a phone or computer to work. It comes with an independent remote control and built in apps to run. Plus, it already has Spotify. I'm wondering why you would get the Chromecast over the Fire Stick.
I always have a phone, tablet or computer within reach, so it's not a problem to have no dedicated remote (one less thing cluttering my living room, actually). I also use legal-greyarea services like Put.io, which only work on Chromecast because of how open the ecosystem is. Before this I used a Boxee Box, which I preferred over the competitors because you could load it full of homebrew (including Put.io). The Chrome…
Put.io is such a good service it hurts - it usually takes 60 seconds to go from thinking about watching just about any movie to streaming it on your TV via chromecast. It kind of annoys me that I didn't think of setting something up that was similar.
Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Anecdotal, but I recently needed a drill and couldn't wait for Prime shipping. Home Depot was charging $15 more, but they price-matched Amazon.
Here's an example:
http://www.amazon.com/Ryobi-P882-Lithium-Ion-Impact-Driver/d... - $155
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-ONE-18-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Dri... - $150
Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Presumably just like the Prime Video app on iPad & iPhone: you must buy from the website, because buying thru the app requires a nontrivial percentage of revenue (on iOS, 30%) go to the platform provider.
While that's true, you can get around it by just not having a store in your app at all. This is how Amazon's existing iOS Kindle app -- and Instant Video streaming app -- work, and (barring politics on Apple and Google's parts) there's absolutely no reason that they can't make apps for Apple TV and Chromecast that work the same way.
Apple's refusal to even allow links to external stores is petty and obnoxious, but Amazon is essentially playing the same game: if you won't let us play the way we want, we're going to make life difficult for our own customers while clutching our pearls and telling everyone that you made us do it.
Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon has never been able to keep up with physical store prices on loss leaders- items that stores frequently mark down below inventory costs to get people in the door in the hopes they will also buy enough marked up merchandise to make up for the loss. I did compare Bounty paper towels and Charmin Ultra about a month ago between Costco and Amazon and found that the dollar savings I got at Costco didn't make up for…
Even on just middle-of-the-road household goods, ignoring weekly sales, Amazon doesn't seem very competitive with brick-and-mortar stores for staple goods, or at least those I buy. I occasionally run down a list of stuff I typically buy at Walmart (shampoo, detergent, OTC drugs, sponges, that kind of thing) to see if any of it has gotten competitive on Amazon, and it usually ends up being way more, not just 5% more o…
Prime Pantry is extremely competitive for me (in New York City) compared to brick-and-mortar stores.
I agree that before Prime Pantry, however, that Amazon was more expensive or I had to buy way to many items (e.g. 10 bottles of shampoo).
Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#246Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ditto, though here's the problem with amazon: buying apple stuff on there is a shit experience. Go there right now and type macbook pro in the search. You'll get a page of results with these top results: Apple MacBook Pro MF839LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (128 GB) NEWEST VERSION Apple MacBook Pro MD101LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop Apple MacBook Pro MJLQ2LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (NEWEST VERSION)…
AFAICT, that problem is general to buying anything through Amazon except things sold directly by Amazon.
Yeah, it's becoming annoying. Batteries are more likely fake/offbrand than not, even when the ad claims otherwise, and last at best 3 months instead of 24 in my car's key fob. I got frustrated and eventually bought them at a local hardware store. Replacement chargers are chinese imitation shit. I've had an increasing number of purchases that don't match their descriptions. Amazon has been very good about it, and always refunds my money, but I'm still left without the plant mite spray or battery or whatever that I needed in the first place, so that only helps so much. I would have thought amazon would be working to get a handle on this but maybe their analytics tell them it doesn't matter.
Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#248This is ridiculous. Google should delist Amazon.com to "avoid customer confusion" when searchers land there and can't buy a chromecast ;) Their explanation is just insulting.
> Their explanation is just insulting. Do they really need to explain their actions here to anyone? They don't owe Apple and Google a spot in their inventory.
> Do they really need to explain their actions here to anyone?
Well, potentially to the FTC.
Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their solution is for you to buy an Amazon Fire Stick and use it instead of your Chromecast.
It doesn't make any sense. They want to sell me Prime not the Fire Stick. To sell Prime get it on as many devices as possible and adding Chromecast support is easy. Amazon makes some strange decisions.
They want to sell the Fire TV and Fire Stick because it will get you 1) used to talking to their remote, 2) hopefully get you searching and browsing around for all kinds of stuff - their selection is a fascinating mix of really new stuff and older stuff and b-movies, and it's often surprising what's covered by the prime subscription and what you have to pay extra for.
By getting you to spend more time in their interface, they can add things. E.g. Prime Music had me spending a lot of time checking out playlists, some of which may very well lead to purchases of albums where only a couple of songs are available for free.
It also gets them penetration for whenever they add shopping to these devices, and e.g. lets you talk to Echo and ask it to bring up the top five best new phones on your TV for you to choose fro.
Getting Prime on Chromecast would help their penetration of Prime, but it might hinder their overall service penetration by giving some people a reason not to get a Fire Stick. Especially when the Fire Stick/Fire TV and Chromecast are all cheap enough that there's little stopping people from getting both...
It may very well backfire for them, but there's all kinds of reasons for them to want to push the Fire TV devices hard.
Re: Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Except they're also a marketplace and they require their vendors to ban the same products. It's not an ecommerce strategy, they're very clearly using their huge leverage as the #1 ecommerce on the internet to attack their competitors and lure customers into their walled garden. I'm pretty sure in my country this will be forbidden by antitrust laws.
> I'm pretty sure in my country this will be forbidden by antitrust laws.
On the surface, perhaps.
However from the article, this is in response to seemingly anti-competitive practices by both Apple and Google's strategies regarding Amazon Prime on their TV devices.
Apple and Google are acting like walled gardens, and so Amazon is retaliating. My guess is Amazons desired outcome is Apple and Google support Amazon Prime video Apple TV and Chromecast.
Edit to add: this comment was pulled out of the ether. Disregard.