The battle between Amazon and Google over YouTube continues on today.
Google has announced that it's pulling YouTube from both the Echo Show and Amazon's Fire TV. Support for YouTube on Echo Show will be pulled today, just a couple of weeks after it returned to that device, while the Fire TV will lose its YouTube access on January 1st, 2018.
Google explained its move by saying that it's pulling YouTube from Amazon's devices due to a "lack of reciprocity," explaining that Amazon doesn't sell Google products like Chromecast or Google Home and doesn't offer Prime Video for Google Cast.
Here's Google's full statement to The Verge:
“We’ve been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other's products and services. But Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest's latest products. Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and FireTV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.”
It's understandable that Google is upset that Amazon doesn't sell Google products but uses its YouTube platform for its own hardware, but this is a bad move for consumers of both Amazon and Google services. Owners of the Echo Show keep having YouTube taken away from them, and now this latest move is going to make even more people upset because Fire TV users will lose YouTube in less than one month. Here's to hoping that Amazon and Google can resolve their dispute soon.
