Amazon Will Ban Sale of Apple, Google Video-Streaming Devices • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by mosdave » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:04 PM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #42

Artistry121 wrote: post #5

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...

Totally agree. They are destroying their most valuable component of their brand, for a relatively weak one (Prime Video). I have Prime and prefer Netflix, because Prime Video still doesn't have a great selection.

not to mention the fact that Prime Instant Video UX is complete shit...

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

#372

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:04 PM UTC

technofiend wrote: post #314

JoshTriplett wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does not restrict the ability to sell items through your app; that's Apple. You can implement a store in your app with purchases if you want, without using Google's payment system. And many such apps exist in the Play store. What you can't do in an app in the Play store is implement your own app store and load arbitrary apps. And Amazon forces you to install the full Amazon app including its app store, rather…

And their forcing you to install an app store shim that asks for ALL/ALL application rights is why they got booted to my "snoopy vendors only" Android profile: the one with zero human contact information. For those of us willing to put the time into it I'd love a cleaner way to containerize apps and firewall off personal information.

That's interesting, I didn't know you could do that with Android. That is a hell of an awesome feature, coming from an iOS user. IMO, we'll almost be forced to maintain multiple identities in the future, and it's good to hear that Google is getting a jump on that trend.

It makes sense, of course, considering that this approach will let Google -- but no one else -- know who all those identities point back to.

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

#373

Post by Pyxl101 » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:04 PM UTC

AJ007 wrote: post #307

yid wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are destroying their most valuable component of their brand, for a relatively weak one (Prime Video). This is why it almost seems like Amazon's Google+ moment: one underperforming product area somehow manages to convince leadership to change the company's underlying principles in its advantage to the long-term detriment of overall brand perception. Edit: 32 points in 19 mins for this comment. I really hope som…

This is more about Roku vs Google & Apple than Amazon vs Google & Apple. Roku has been the market leader by far up until 2015. One problem is that Amazon is now inviting consumers to open a direct relationship with Google or Apple. If a user makes a purchase of an Apple TV or Chromecast directly, Google or Apple now know exactly who they are. Generally speaking, making it hard or cutting off sales channels for specif…

If I understand the news article correctly, streaming video players will be allowed as long as they support Amazon Video too. If that's a correct understanding, then it implies that Amazon would sell Chromecast or Apple TV again if those companies add support for Prime Video.

I could be wrong though - this is based on the limited info in the article.

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

#374

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

Pyxl101 wrote: post #365

korzun wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point. Who cares if it's expensive or confusing. They are banning products that are competing with their own products. Amazon is simply a store for majority of the people who shop there. If Google banned Amazon from search results you would probably be outraged.

Based on the news article, Amazon isn't banning competitors. Roku competes with Fire TV, and the Netflix app it bundles competes with Prime Video. The article says Amazon will still sell Roku. Indeed, Amazon's Fire TV also supports Netflix and Hulu and HBO and ESPN and whatnot, not just Amazon Video. The news article says that they're banning video streaming devices that don't support Amazon Video. So if that's true,…

> The news article says that they're banning video streaming devices that don't support Amazon Video.

The only reason the devices don't support Amazon Video is because Amazon has chosen not to build apps that support those devices.

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

#375

Post by JohnTHaller » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:09 PM UTC

larubbio wrote: post #258

This move really saddens me. When I left Netscape to work at Amazon one of the things that I was excited about was a quote from Jeff. "Focus on the customer, not competition." It seems they hve forgotten that. I found it frustrating when I couldn't stream Prime videos to my android phone (is stock android that different from the version on Fire?) I found it frustrating (but understandable) when they said they wouldn'…

Prime instant video always worked on Android. Amazon just didn't want you to use it because they wanted to sell you a tablet. Or a horribly overpriced clunky phone.

Amazon now lets you use Prime instant video on your Android device, but there's a big catch. You have to manually install it from their site and allow untrusted apps on your phone to do so. And it's not just Prime instant video you're installing, you're installing the full Amazon App Store on your Android device and giving it full permissions to everything on your phone so it can install and update other apps.

This type of behavior is only focused on the competition and a big middle finger to the customer.

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

#376

Post by School-Cotton » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:09 PM UTC

dynofuz wrote: post #138

Artistry121 wrote: post #5

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...

> If they are no longer the "Everything Store" then they won't be where I go to for everything... I'm working on it: http://percht.com , its still under heavy development and im not done crawling everything, but its coming. yeah you cant order on percht either, but i have to start somewhere... There's cool stuff behind the scenes including react / nlp / and neural nets in case anyone would like to collaborate.

Amazon has something like this, but only targeted to India: http://www.junglee.com

Edit: Disclosure: I worked on Junglee for two years, but don't anymore.

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

#377

Post by atomicbeanie » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

atomicbeanie wrote: post #148

Because Apple will not have difficulty fulfilling orders for its products on the Internet itself, I doubt anyone could claim Amazon is in violation of the rule of reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Ru... That said, this is only true of companies like Apple, who already have access to favorable terms to resources like UPS, etc. I think the much more important question is whether Amazon w…

I would also add, that once Amazon's product teams have protection from the competition, they are going to evolve to be less competitive. Moving to an easier league, never makes a team better :-)

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

#378

Post by anon4327733 » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

JoblessWonder wrote: post #86

devit wrote: post #28

There should be laws that force anyone who owns a platform without any perfect replacements (which includes all two-sided markets) to allow any legal and non-fraudulent content, products, businesses or people on it at non-discriminatory costs. Amazon should be forced allow selling anything legal, Apple should be forced to allow any legal apps, Facebook should not be allowed to ban people, Paypal should not be allowed…

You are free to start up your own competing platform if you don't like how one is run. See reddit/voat. I'm not sure how creating (more) laws that govern how businesses are run will somehow result in more freedom?

And how successful was Voat?

http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centrali...

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

#379

Post by ac29 » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

awakeasleep wrote: post #317

korzun wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need a $500+ scale to dose it accurately enough Or you can just get a super small 0.25 cent plastic scoop that amounts to normal dose.

You definitely can't do this, because you don't actually know the density of what you're measuring. Depending on how the caffeine was prepared, it'll be in crystalline flakes or chunks of varying sizes and configurations. Think of it like snow. You can't tell how much water went into a given volume of snow because you don't know if you're dealing with fluffy snow, wet snow, super fine powder snow, etc.

You definitely can. You don't need exactly 200.000 mg of caffeine for it to be 1 serving. Using 2 ~100mg spoonfuls will probably get you 150-250mg of caffeine, which isn't any more or less accurate than brewed coffee, which varies wildly in caffeine content.

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

#380

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:11 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #341

hrayr wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a long held belief that Amazon is a principled and trust worthy company... sadly that vision is crumbling before my eyes.

Um, no offense, why? They crushed all the technical bookstores because they didn't have to pay sales tax. Their customer service beyond cheap refunds is abysmal. They understand how hard it is to distinguish between stuff that is only serviced through them, but choose not to fix it. And Bezos is famous for being both an asshole and micromanager. One-stop? Sure. Efficient? Maybe. Trustworthy? Pardon me for laughing.

Um, no offense, why? They crushed all the technical bookstores because they didn't have to pay sales tax.

Um, no, they crushed all the technical bookstores because they could always get you the book you wanted very quickly and at a good price, unlike any other bookstore on the planet. Every one of those bookstores could have done the same thing in the Internet age, but the thing is, they didn't.

I do miss bookstores like Computer Literacy but that's pure nostalgia -- I'd never want to go back. I couldn't give a crap about sales tax one way or the other.

Their customer service beyond cheap refunds is abysmal.

What other kind of customer service is there, for a retailer? When something goes wrong with an Amazon order, I don't have pay for it. End of story.

They understand how hard it is to distinguish between stuff that is only serviced through them, but choose not to fix it.

That much is true... their UX is a dog's breakfast, and always has been. Best thing you can say about it is that it could be worse.

And Bezos is famous for being both an asshole and micromanager.

Well, I don't report to him, so... good. Retail is not a good business for dilettante CEOs.

One-stop? Sure. Efficient? Maybe. Trustworthy? Pardon me for laughing.

They've seldom put a foot wrong where I'm concerned. This does sound like a pretty dumb move, though. What's good for the customer is good for Amazon, and this isn't good for the customer.