Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Follows Through: Drops Apple TV, Chromecast
Hot Hardware notes that Amazon has stopped selling two pieces of hardware -- Apple TV and Google's Chromecast -- that compete with Amazon's own streaming business. (They promised to drop them a while back; not everyone though they actually would.) From the article: While some have likened this move to being anti-competitive, it's hard to grasp whether the legal system would agree. Amazon's defense is that since these devices don't support Prime Video, it doesn't want to sell products to its customers and have them assume that they will."
Amazon's defense is that since these devices don't support Prime Video, it doesn't want to sell products to its customers and have them assume that they will.
Never mind the fact that Amazon seems to intentionally not be developing for either device, when smaller streaming services support Apple TV and the Chromecast API is open?
What if I buy a Prime-capable device, but I'm not a Prime customers. Won't I be confused?
If you want an anti-trust lawsuit, usually you need political connections, and better political connections than your opponent. And Amazon keeps up on their payments, to both parties.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Here is the response I received from Amazon when I contacted customer service: Amazon Your Account Amazon.com Message From Customer Service Hello, I am sorry for the inconvenience you experienced in this case. After looking into your inquiry about the item new Apple TV that you could not find in the website, I feel we could best resolve this concern for you over the phone so that we can help you locate the item. This way, you can speak to our live customer support team who can ensure we resolve this concern to your satisfaction. I realize that, at this point, asking you to contact us again would be disappointing; however, we really feel that the best way to assist you with this concern is over the phone. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated. So in this case, I request you to please visit the following link, enter your phone number through the Phone tab, and we'll call you: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help... We're available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Please be rest assured that we are here to make things easier for you and we'll take every action to prevent you from bearing any loss. On a personal level, I highly appreciate your patience, cooperation and understanding in this matter. It is our privilege to have you as our valued customer & we want to make sure you are always taken care of. Thanks for your cooperation. We'd appreciate your feedback. Please use the links below to tell us about your experience today. Best regards, Johann S.
Is Amazon dropping all other streaming devices that don't support Prime Video? And if not, will that undermine their argument?
All of which is really putting the cart before the horse - in terms of legal arguments, does their rationale actually hold any water to start with?
From the summary: "Amazon's defense is that since these devices don't support Prime Video, it doesn't want to sell products to its customers and have them assume that they will."
Couldn't Amazon just post a warning that those devices don't support Prime Video?
It would get really interesting if Google would block Amazon from their search results, and Apple from their computers in response.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Republicans love to force people to sell products from competitors.
that let's the get away with this. Crazy commie world this is now. No wonder Carson and Trump lead. Politics has for too long belonged to those who can bid the highest.
And now Amazon will learn the lesson that attempts to impose control only create chaos and harm. It's a simple and ancient axiom and one the shareholders deserve to have observed.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Pretty much sucks. The only interesting thing I've found that's included with prime is "The Man In The High Castle". Everything else interesting costs more to view.
But Amazon would be happy to sell me another one...
Exactly. This is Republicanism at its worst.
Only one of those Republicans have a problem with this.
How does it feel, Google and Apple, that Amazon sell sex dolls over your hardware?
Since fucking when is a retailer choosing not to carry a product anything remotely like "anti-competitive?" You fucking wankers need to pull your head out.
Do Ford dealerships sell Chevys?
Right after Black Friday and Holiday sales.
We have been instructed not to create a record of our communication with you. We realize that this record could be used against in court or in public. Phone calls are less likely to be used against us in court or in public.
Amazon prime video isn't even available to most of Amazon's customers. Is Amazon going to follow through on this for countries they don't service?
3 posts, all not in thread, with the same post
if it was not clear enough that its the same troll posting this on every article, you have shown your hand
try harder next time
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
1: rainbow flag
2: confederate flag
What are the motivations behind what to sell and what not to sell? Simple economics? Buy low, sell high?
Ponder. Even those who "don't get it", actually do get it but lie to themselves AND others.
Since of course the reason those devices don't support Prime Video is that Amazon decided not to provide Prime Video on those devices, unlike say Netflix, Hulu, and every other streaming provider under the sun.
There is always newegg.com, and frys.com, for all your electronic needs, if amazon.com can not satisfy them.
He trolls almost every thread with political hate. Just another deer caught in GOP headlights knowing Dems are doomed come 2016 due to a president who actually managed to piss off the nation worse than Bush Jr (no small feat), and the weak corrupt socialist candidates Dems are propping up like cardboard cut outs for target practice when the real pie throwing contest begins.
It's not being anti competitive. Otherwise you could say the Apple Stores are anti competitive for not carrying Microsoft products.
3cda 36d3 6fef c297
b8f8 40ff 9d11 9b6d
8656 5221 0574 8244
d0a5 7455 6a37 733e
d445 03cd f476 4a67
bff2 73f0 4908 7b31
44a9 057c 791a b69b
0420 2826 8733 48d9
if you delete things in the course of a regular business policy, then you don't have to produce them
That depends on the minimum retention period laws in effect in your jurisdiction.
That's what anti-competitive capitalists really lust after, total lock in and unlimited profit with crappy products. None of this level playing field and competing on price and service. And to a great extent their wishes have been granted. Look at the entire US banking and Wall Street economic sector, pharmaceuticals, telcos, agribusiness, brewing (the two biggest brewing groups in the world want to merge), ad nauseam.
Amazon doesn't own the internet, no more then ABC owns the broadcast bandwidth that they use. Broadcast TV providers are allowed to use a common resource when they follow the rules, pay their taxes and fees, and engage in honest business. So why the hell is Amazon, or any of these other scum sucking pigs, allowed to have their walled garden carved out of the open common resource that is the internet?
It's just more of the DMCA crap, or the upcoming TPP. Corrupt insiders are writing the rules so that they have permanent control, no competition, no oversight and guaranteed high profit margins. The game is rigged, and the less you have the more they have. Out of your pocket, into theirs.
Why is Snark Required?
Since Amazon has decided to play hardball, maybe Google and Apple should yank Amazon's Shopping app for the app stores.
Don't forget Amazon still has an Amazon Prime video app in the iOS store - AND that app uses AirPlay just fine to stream to an AppleTV (even the new one).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.amazon.com/Tinuos-408491-Perma-Nyl-C-S-Battle/dp/B016XRZOE0/ref=sr_1_38?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1446353597&sr=1-38&keywords=confederate+flag
I hope google bans amazon from its search results and apple refuses to play amazon videos on macbooks/iphones/ipads...
the UK FreeSat (Free to Air Satellite ie. 0$ per month) service has just gained another channel : PBS America.
I saw an old but informative prog on the birth of the Spitfire (WW2 fighter for those who don't know their history).
This and doubling the amount you need to order for a free delivery. And making the cost of prime so high by bundling loads of stuff together.
so they should be dropping the shield tv too right?
Corrupt insiders are writing the rules so that they have permanent control, no competition, no oversight and guaranteed high profit margins.
What you describe is not capitalism.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
It's not your wonderland imaginary version of capitalism that has never happened anywhere in the world, no, but it's what capitalism always results in. Deny the empirical evidence all you want, but unfettered capitalism has always lead to monopolies, lock-in and massive abuses of power.
Is Amazon video missing on AppleTV because Apple wouldn't allow them on it, or because Amazon chose not to be on it?
Did it boil down to Apple maybe allowing them as long as Amazon kicked back 5% of on-demand revenue? For prime videos, were they asking for a percentage there, too? Is there some upfront cost to be on Apple TV + percentages?
I can only see Apple's demands for money as being part of the equation, although I don't know how it works for Netflix -- does Netflix pay Apple just for presence? Some fee for new subscribers bought through Apple TV?
Was it just a case of Apple wanting to exclude Amazon because of competition over rental/purchases?
Will the new Apple TV support Amazon Video?
FWIW, I don't think Amazon is anti-competitive. I don't like it, because I think when video services fracture with too many exclusives, the studios win, cable wins, and consumers lose -- a person is pretty easy back to $50/month for a patchwork of streaming services to get what they want, back to a cable model of subsidizing shit you don't care about.
If you have a US prime account you can stream anywhere. Uh... unless you leave the country. Can't stream in Canada with a US account.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
The most consumer-centric company pull an apple on their consumers.
As they won't run Windows, people will be confused as to what they have purchased? Or, are they going to drop everybody else's computers as they won't run OS X? Or, are they dropping pretty much everybody's computers because they don't run AMAZOS?
They'll close the circle when they drop physical books as they lack DRM.
Apple TV doesn't provide WebKit or UIWebView on tvOS
In some ways, Nintendo is considered behind the times on Internet policy. Yet it had the web on its TV device eight years ago, when Wii owners could download "Internet Channel powered by Opera" on Wii Shop. So how behind the times is Apple?
"While some have likened this move to being anti-competitive..."
Yes, "some" in this case means "approaching 99.99999%". This, to me, seems to be the very essence of what "anti-competitive" means.
Honestly, this is such an obvious anti-competitive move that I can't believe it's even being debated, especially since they were selling Apple TV and Chromecast before they came out with their specific brand-locked bullshit product. But we can't have people buying stuff that might cut into our profits, can we?
So if Amazon starts making hammers, is it okay if they drop all other brands of hammers from their store? Because those other hammers might not be compatible with Amazon brand nails, you know.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
... to sell any particular product? If someone complains, will Apple be obligated to sell Chromecast devices on their website? When I walk into Safeway, I cannot find any of the Loblaws house brands on sale. Likewise, when I walk into Loblaws, I cannot find any of the Safeway house brands on sale. Yet, in neither case does anyone complain that these companies are being anticompetitive.
No retailer should be obligated to sell any particular product. Apple has both its own website and physical stores. Chromecast is available for sale online and at multiple physical retailers. Amazon prevents me from buying neither by not selling them. By not carrying these products, all that Amazon does it to deprive itself of part of the price I pay.
linquendum tondere
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Shop elsewhere. Next topic.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Honestly, the only reason I shop at Amazon is because they seem to have everything. As I have been noticing that they depart from that, or their prices get higher, I'm starting to look elsewhere. They were the best marketplace option but are becoming less so over the past year or so, and their competition is seeming a little better. But the competition still do not offer a really good comprehensive service... so I'm looking for other options but what I'm finding isn't great.
Just my $0.55 (US inflation, 1774-2008, for $0.02)
I'm in canada, where prime video is not available on any device unless I lie about my location and/or use a VPN. As such removing from sale devices that do not support a format that I cannot use from their store only succeeds in ensuring they will not get my business for these devices.
DICK move Amazon!
Hence the term, 'anti-competative.' That is a choice, legally, that Amazon customers are supposed to be able to make for themselves, not that Smazon makes for them. That's a seriously straw man defense, and it would not hold up in court against actual law. I will not be surprised to see this reversed (unless our justice system really is that broken). Having a temper tantrum because customers choose competing products more often is not legally protected. Make better shit, Amazon, and people will buy sad shit.
amazon is in the business of selling stuff. they get to choose what they sell and don't. they also have free speech, such as to have on their website only what they wish.
but. I look at this as more of a bargaining chip, to compete with apple and google. 'either add support for our stuff, or we won't carry your products.' that sounds ok in my books.
Amazon sells both the PS4 and Xbox One but not the Wii U, maybe Nintendo should sue them? I really don't see how Amazon should be required by law to sell any device it doesn't want to. I don't see any violation of race, religion or sexual orientation or age or anything else, it' just electronics. Target stopped selling Amazon Fire tablets a couple of years ago, don't recall anybody getting their panties in a bunch.
How about Prime Video supporting these other devices? No, that would be too cooperative.
This strategy has been around since the 2001 bubble burst. The valley knows it well..
He trolls almost every thread with political hate. Just another deer caught in GOP headlights knowing Dems are doomed come 2016 due to a president who actually managed to piss off the nation worse than Bush Jr (no small feat), and the weak corrupt socialist candidates Dems are propping up like cardboard cut outs for target practice when the real pie throwing contest begins.
I'm not a Republicrat or a Demlican; but I don't think the R's have anything particularly to crow about in their comically-huge candidate lineup, either.
To Amazon:
I am offended that you removed the Apple TV from the Amazon Marketplace. This is anti-competitive and compromises your own values. Why did the Apple TV get targeted when there are so many other TV connected devices still being sold on Amazon? Nobody wants the inferior Fire TV when there are better products out there. I definitely will not consider purchasing an Amazon branded electronic device because of this.
Reply:
Hello,
I understand that you prefer to purchase Apple TV from us. I'm sorry for these circumstances.
Please know that in no way did we intend for this to happen. We are here to serve our customers to the best of our ability, but despite our best efforts, there are circumstances beyond our control.
In this case, I forwarded this information to our specialist so that they can look into this.
In case you come across any more issues or have any other queries, please inform us and we'll take care of it.
It is our privilege to have you as our valued customer & we want to make sure you are always taken care of.
We look forward to see you again soon.
Best regards,
Amazon is a large enterprise with many different components. To everyone who says Amazon should be able to choose the products they sell I agree completely. If Amazon doesn't want to offer Chromecast or Apple TV as "Sold By Amazon" then it's entirely within their right to do that. But Amazon also provides a service where third parties can also offer items for sale on the Amazon storefront called Amazon Marketplace, and Amazon now prevents third parties from offering Chromecast or Apple TV for sale through those channels as well.
While Amazon has long has a restricted items list for the Amazon Marketplace service, they are now explicitly preventing sales of certain devices which do not support an additional Amazon service, Amazon Prime Video. I haven't found any other restricted item where the restriction is based on the item's incompatibility with an Amazon service. This is the point where I think an anti-trust case could be made by Marketplace sellers. Will those sellers, who had previously been able to sell these products on Amazon, continue to stock and sell those products through other channels now that they cannot be sold via their Amazon storefront? Or will Amazon have effectively reduced the number of resellers of products which do not "support" an Amazon service because Amazon has chosen not to extend their service onto those devices (especially in regards to the latest Apple TV generation)?
Apple TV and Chromecast are hugely popular products and great stocking stuffers. I guess Amazon is scared of being found a monopoly and desperate to breeze some life into competition by forcing millions of customers to establish an account and form of payment with another online store. I would suggest that they also dump iPhone and Samsung devices and focus more on promoting their Fire Phone.
Their drone delivery is not very reliable if they keep dropping shit.
Try it! Library of Babel