Google loudly declares it wants to be investigated for antitrust violations.

[Jason]

Google: We put YouTube TV in the main YouTube app. What now, Roku?

ARSTECHNICA.COM

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Google sidesteps the YouTube TV ban, threatens to send free devices to customers.

 

[CitizenVectron]

Google needs to be broken up and the data legally silo'd between each child company.

[Ghost_MH]

I'm actually with Google on this one. The whole spat is over Roku refusing to upgrade its hardware over a standard EVERYONE, even Apple, is trying to push that is designed save folks on bandwidth while also increasing video quality for more bandwidth limited connections.

 

Google is threatening to send everyone with a YouTube TV subscription a new Chromecast TV for free, but Google already did that. They're always giving away stuff like this. Chromecasts with YouTube TV, Nest Mini speakers with YouTube Music, and Chromecast Ultras and a gamepad with Stadia.

 

Not sure why this one would be an antitrust issue. Roku owns half the streaming hardware market and are using their footprint to force Google to not push AV1 onto them and forced them to upgrade all their stuff. As far as I'm aware, they aren't looking to brick everyone's Roku come January. I believe the force is just on new hardware. Now, if Google doesn't upgrade they're own Chromecast and gives themselves an exception with new hardware, that would be a major issue.

[finaljedi]

Roku was my box of choice up until a couple years ago when they started getting fucky with apps.  They were perfect, an agnostic maker of stuff to plug into your tv that had everything, it wasn't trying to push you into an Amazon, Apple, or Google ecosystem, it just had a page of apps and literally everyone had apps on it.  Then they started playing hardball with HBO with regards to HBO Max, I think they had something up with Peacock too, and now they're having a spat with Google.

 

Honestly telling them they need to support AV1 on new hardware doesn't seem like too much of an ask.

[TwinIon]

40 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

Not sure why this one would be an antitrust issue. Roku owns half the streaming hardware market and are using their footprint to force Google to not push AV1 onto them and forced them to upgrade all their stuff. As far as I'm aware, they aren't looking to brick everyone's Roku come January. I believe the force is just on new hardware. Now, if Google doesn't upgrade they're own Chromecast and gives themselves an exception with new hardware, that would be a major issue.

 

I think the anti-trust issue is that YouTube itself is so dominant that while the YouTube TV / Google negotiations are pretty standard fare, Google is able to effectively sidestep the issue by putting YouTube TV into an app that Roku can't afford to ban.

 

When it comes to YouTube TV, I think Google has every right to say "if you want our service on your platform, play by these rules," be that codec support, hardware minimums, or whatever. The natural position of Roku would be to respond, "well, we don't like those rules, and since competing services exist (Hulu TV, Sling, etc.), we just won't support your app."  What makes this fight very different from the similar fights Roku was having with HBO, Peacock, and whoever else is the existence of YouTube and the way Google is using it here.

 

 

As far as Roku as a company is concerned, I was all about them as a neutral platform provider, but their hard pivot to ad sales and the hard line they've taken with content providers makes their stuff far less desirable. No point in a neutral streaming device if I can't stream all my stuff, and their lack of desire to improve their UI makes their high end stuff far less interesting.

[mclumber1]

My house is full of Rokus and we subscribe to YoutubeTV, so I hope they find common ground in the near future.  Luckily if you already had the app installed on your Roku device, you aren't really affected. 

[Ghost_MH]

37 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

 

I think the anti-trust issue is that YouTube itself is so dominant that while the YouTube TV / Google negotiations are pretty standard fare, Google is able to effectively sidestep the issue by putting YouTube TV into an app that Roku can't afford to ban.

 

When it comes to YouTube TV, I think Google has every right to say "if you want our service on your platform, play by these rules," be that codec support, hardware minimums, or whatever. The natural position of Roku would be to respond, "well, we don't like those rules, and since competing services exist (Hulu TV, Sling, etc.), we just won't support your app."  What makes this fight very different from the similar fights Roku was having with HBO, Peacock, and whoever else is the existence of YouTube and the way Google is using it here.

 

 

As far as Roku as a company is concerned, I was all about them as a neutral platform provider, but their hard pivot to ad sales and the hard line they've taken with content providers makes their stuff far less desirable. No point in a neutral streaming device if I can't stream all my stuff, and their lack of desire to improve their UI makes their high end stuff far less interesting.

 

Eh, this is a two way push. They dropped YouTube TV in retaliation for Google not dropping their AV1 requirement and Google retaliated by pushing YouTube TV into YouTube to stop they're existing YouTube TV customers on Roku from jumping ship. It's not like YouTube TV is anything but YouTube with live channels, anyway.

 

I was, at one point, an entirely Roku household. They just have not managed to keep up their tech and their fuckery with remaining truly service agnostic lost me. I don't even mind the ads. They've got to make their money somehow. I would just expect them to be the number one platform for everything and not pick and choose winners and losers based on arguments their customers care nothing about.

[TwinIon]

11 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

Eh, this is a two way push. They dropped YouTube TV in retaliation for Google not dropping their AV1 requirement and Google retaliated by pushing YouTube TV into YouTube to stop they're existing YouTube TV customers on Roku from jumping ship. It's not like YouTube TV is anything but YouTube with live channels, anyway.

Maybe technically they're both just streaming video, but in terms of what role they play in the market they're very different.

 

YouTube TV competes with Hulu Live TV, Sling, every other streaming TV service, as well as cable TV and even broadcast TV. Roku could do just fine selling boxes that don't work with YouTube TV because there are all sorts of options that their users could use instead to get the exact same content. In that way Google's negotiating position in regards to YouTube TV is even weaker than others that have had disputes like HBO or NBC, because much of their content can't be had elsewhere.

 

YouTube itself is a whole different thing. It's a whole category near unto itself. Selling a box that does video but doesn't support YouTube would be a serious problem. Netflix is king of paid steaming, but as of July 2019, they estimated YouTube to be 7x their size (in terms of streaming hours).  

 

I'm not really on Roku's side here, but the nature of YouTube is what makes an unfair fight and a potential anti-trust issue.

[Ghost_MH]

23 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

Maybe technically they're both just streaming video, but in terms of what role they play in the market they're very different.

 

YouTube TV competes with Hulu Live TV, Sling, every other streaming TV service, as well as cable TV and even broadcast TV. Roku could do just fine selling boxes that don't work with YouTube TV because there are all sorts of options that their users could use instead to get the exact same content. In that way Google's negotiating position in regards to YouTube TV is even weaker than others that have had disputes like HBO or NBC, because much of their content can't be had elsewhere.

 

YouTube itself is a whole different thing. It's a whole category near unto itself. Selling a box that does video but doesn't support YouTube would be a serious problem. Netflix is king of paid steaming, but as of July 2019, they estimated YouTube to be 7x their size (in terms of streaming hours).  

 

I'm not really on Roku's side here, but the nature of YouTube is what makes an unfair fight and a potential anti-trust issue.

 

Oh I get what you mean here. It's just that a lot of this stuff is arbitrary distinctions made by Google, themselves, because Google is crazy and likes forcing people to install a thousand different apps that do the exact same thing. Hulu Live is just a part of the Hulu app. Even ESPN+ is offered as part of the Hulu app for those that subscribe to both.  This is primarily a Google problem and you need not look any further than the fact they have Hangouts, Chat, Messages, Duo, Talk, Meet, and Allo...well, they shut down Allo like a year or so ago, but that's besides the point.