Amazon and Google aren’t playing nice over the holidays.
On Tuesday, Google said that it’s pulling YouTube from Amazon’s streaming devices, the FireTV and Echo Show. It’s the latest adversarial move in an increasingly thorny relationship between the two tech giants, which are going head-to-head in hardware, content, cloud services and even digital advertising.
YouTube will be off Amazon’s devices starting Jan. 1, meaning consumers in the market for a streaming gadget over the holidays may instead choose one from Roku, Apple or Google. A Google spokesperson attributes the cut-off to a “lack of reciprocity” from Amazon.
The e-commerce giant has long refused to sell many of Google’s hardware products, including its Chromecast streaming device, Home smart speaker and, more recently, several of its Nest security offerings. It also doesn’t make its Prime Video content available to Chromecast users.
As Google and Amazon are in an intensifying battle for the living room, they’re also competing for enterprise users moving to the cloud. The Google Cloud Platform has continued to release a slew of new products aimed at capturing market share from industry leader Amazon Web Services and has won cloud business from the likes of Kroger, which told CNBC last month that it doesn’t want to fund its retail competitor.
While the cloud rivalry is leading to more services and lower prices for businesses, the disconnect on the consumer device and content side is bad for consumers. Instead of having one product with all their favorite content, they have to make a choice.
Investors in the world’s two most valuable internet companies certainly aren’t suffering. Alphabet has surged 29 percent this year and Amazon is up 52 percent. For Amazon, that leap has made CEO Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world, with a total net worth of more than $96 billion.
“We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon,” the Google spokesperson said.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.
Source: Tech CNBC
Google pulls YouTube from Amazon's streaming device as battle of tech giants heats up