Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 408 posts

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#151

Post by mrtranscendence »

SR2Z wrote: post #114
dcow wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't it be up to Roku, not Google, to decide how their product experience works? LGs TVs have a prominent omni search button. If you’re in the YT app and use the omnisearch it searches across all content services you have connected. It’s an amazingly useful feature and makes the TV experience actually feel integrated. First time I’ve been happy with a “smart” TV experience. I’d say it’s a fair comparison.

It would be up to Roku if Roku were willing to support Google with resources for developing their YT/YT TV apps. They literally have no power beyond acting as a gatekeeper for their users. Their omnisearch (which was awful, at least the last time I used it) is a major part of their strategy to try and guide users towards content they profit from. Given that it's Google's job to guard the UX of their Roku apps, I thin…

> not gimp search inside the YT app.

I could see this argument if a search for music would lead to a search for (say) a music video. But the idea, as I understand it, is that a request for music to be played would instead be routed through YouTube Music. Even if I'm in the YouTube app, I'm not going to want my music search to go through YouTube Music -- I'm not a subscriber.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#152

Post by verelo »

cptskippy wrote: post #88
smt88 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is both what many users would expect (if I have an app open, voice search works within that app) No, it's not. Most YouTube users have a different primary music app. Google is trying to artificially force a marriage of YouTube and YouTube Music because they have utterly failed to do it in the product experience and user base themselves. If I'm watching a random YouTube video and then want to switch to music, I…

As a Roku user who thinks Google takes a pretty hostile approach to anyone using their App on Roku, I disagree. If I'm in an App and search, I expect my search to be localized to that App. That being said, f*k Roku and their voice remote. They've been pushing that crap hard. Showing prompts on screen for upwards of 30 seconds to push the Mic button. I don't want my remote to have a microphone or be able to listen to…

Just make it a setting? This seems stupid to debate, let’s allow users to choose.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#153

Post by sircastor »

throwawayboise wrote: post #101
malka wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is both what many users would expect If I'm watching a video on youtube and ask to play music, no I do NOT want at all youtube to handle that. Youtube music is crap. Google has proven many times that they are totally unable to manage music. They should stop to try, because it is utterly embarrassing.

> Youtube music is crap It's good enough for a lot of people. I pay for YouTube Premium, so I get YouTube music (formerly Google Play Music) included, and it works well enough that I'm not going to pay for a separate music app.

YouTube Premium is the only reason I stick with YouTube Music. I was a Google Play Music user, and that was fine. Getting both was a boon. I would say though that YouTube Music has been an overall downgrade.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#154

Post by ed25519FUUU »

izacus wrote: post #96
s3r3nity wrote: post #2

> Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open, even if the user's music preference is set to default to another music app, like Pandora. > Roku says Google has threatened to require Roku to use certain chip sets or memory cards that would force Roku to increase the price of its hardware product, which competes directly with…

Last I checked YouTube requires VP9 support for HDR. Why is requesting that new devices support the format to avoid fragmentation a problem? Apple also demands certain format support for their video streams to work (not to mention a browser).

The keyword is “threaten”

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#155

Post by dyingkneepad »

etempleton wrote: post #142

HBO Max was delayed in appearing on Roku because of negotiation breakdowns. In the case HBO it was Roku that seemed to have the demands. They are looking at revenue anywhere they can, but if their position weakens look for Google, ATT, and others to simply forgo working with them. I think Roku is in a perilous position in general. They generated a lot of buzz on Wallstreet with their high user counts. They also purch…

Well, there are also Roku TVs now.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#156

Post by throwaway9_3 »

This wouldn't be the first time Google uses their market power to gain an unfair advantage in the TV space.

On the TV Device Maker side they don't allow manufacturers to use alternatives to Android TV (such as FireTV) or they threaten to kick them out of Android Mobile. See https://www.protocol.com/google-android-amazon-fire-tv

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#157

Post by dangus »

cptskippy wrote: post #88
smt88 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is both what many users would expect (if I have an app open, voice search works within that app) No, it's not. Most YouTube users have a different primary music app. Google is trying to artificially force a marriage of YouTube and YouTube Music because they have utterly failed to do it in the product experience and user base themselves. If I'm watching a random YouTube video and then want to switch to music, I…

As a Roku user who thinks Google takes a pretty hostile approach to anyone using their App on Roku, I disagree. If I'm in an App and search, I expect my search to be localized to that App. That being said, f*k Roku and their voice remote. They've been pushing that crap hard. Showing prompts on screen for upwards of 30 seconds to push the Mic button. I don't want my remote to have a microphone or be able to listen to…

Hot take: the Apple TV is easily the best device of its kind on the market and I’m continually confused at why it doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to the most popular option.

Every other steaming device I’ve ever tried is riddled with ads, dark patterns, and slow slow SLOW performance.

I can understand the aversion to a $200 device just to watch some Internet TV but then I watch people making six figures pretend like a $50 Fire/Roku Stick is the best way to watch movies on their $2,000 LG OLED.

If I were buying a steaming device today I’d probably be evaluating the Apple TV against the Nvidia Shield.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#158

Post by sircastor »

etempleton wrote: post #142

HBO Max was delayed in appearing on Roku because of negotiation breakdowns. In the case HBO it was Roku that seemed to have the demands. They are looking at revenue anywhere they can, but if their position weakens look for Google, ATT, and others to simply forgo working with them. I think Roku is in a perilous position in general. They generated a lot of buzz on Wallstreet with their high user counts. They also purch…

The reason I picked and stay with Roku is that they aren't married to a single Big Tech co. I already suffer the lack of a proper YouTube app on my Echo Show because Amazon and Google are having a tiff. I don't want to pick an ecosystem and live exclusively inside of it.

As it is, I'm already in a mixed household (Me with iOS and my wife with Android) and it's a pain to deal with the lack of cross-platform playing together.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#159

Post by the_lonely_road »

echelon wrote: post #116
the_lonely_road wrote: post #105

This kind of tactic works. I have 3 rokus in a box collecting dust and two brand new Fire sticks that replaced them. I didn't want to do this but 85% of my streaming time is spent on Twitch.tv and I wasn't able to use my Roku's to stream it anymore.

Out of curiosity, who do you watch on Twitch? How do you find interesting content?

GrandVice8 is 95% of my stream consumption but my followed list online right now is:

TimTheTatman DrLupo dogdog DQA_TFT Becca Break TidesofTime ibiza Kaymind smaceTRON Myles_Away Cheesewiz DeliciousMilkGG

It depends on how you define interesting content of course. For me that is "Tactical or strategic games with a significant enough RNG component to be classified as 'Controlling the Chaos' (think Poker, not Chess) and which have a lively leaderboard. I enjoy watching the competition for Rank #1 and I enjoy competing to see how high I can get. My current favorite game is Team Fight Tactics (Riot Games the maker of league of legends auto battler). You can find the leaderboards here: https://lolchess.gg/leaderboards?hl=en-US And my all time highest rank achieved was #540/1,250,000 in North America (not bad at all for an executive and father of a toddler). Pretty much all of the guys competing for rank #1 will also be streamers so finding content is as easy as googling their name from the leaderboard + twitch.

If thats not your cup of tea, probably the best way would be to choose twitch's browse option and just watch the most popular streamers in each game for a few minutes to see if you are into their content. Some are informative, some are looking to appeal to 13 year olds, some are chasing some goal, etc.

Re: Roku says it may lose YouTube TV app after Google made anti-competitive demands

#160

Post by d1str0 »

cptskippy wrote: post #131
8ytecoder wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The behaviour I expect is that the voice search is global except when I specifically go to the search screen of the app. That’s how it works on Apple TV and that’s what is intuitive to me.

That's a reasonable expectation, not having ever used Apple TV though that isn't mine. Having only ever been on the Roku platform, my perception is that it's localized.

As an apple tv user, it has been trained into me that voice commands are Global unless specifically in the search field (not just the search screen). I fuck this up all the time.

What is naturally intuitive to me is to go to an app and anywhere in that app have a voice search specific for that app, as Google is requesting of Roku.

Post reply on HN