The years-long Amazon-Google fight has finally come to an end, which means their respective streaming services have finally become available on each other’s platforms. The anti-consumer feud was not in the best interest of either company. In April, the two companies promised consumers to bring Amazon Prime Video and YouTube on each other’s platforms. Now they have officially announced that YouTube is on Fire TVs and the Prime Video is available for streaming on Android TV and Chromecast.
The Amazon-Google fight was as silly as it appears. They had refused to offer their respective streaming services on each other’s platforms and dongles. Now that they have buried the hatchet, the YouTube app will work natively on Amazon’s Fire TV Stick (2nd gen), Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick Basic Edition, and Fire TV Cube. It will also be available on Fire TV smart televisions from Westinghouse, Insignia, Toshiba, and Element.
You can download YouTube on these Amazon devices. More Fire TV devices will get YouTube “in the coming months.” Google has promised to bring YouTube Kids and YouTube TV apps on Fire TV later this year. YouTube supports Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, allowing you to control YouTube playback on Fire TV using voice commands.
Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service has arrived on Android TV and Android-powered set-top boxes. If you have Android TV or streaming media player, you can download Prime Video from the Play Store. What’s more, the Prime Video has also become available on Google’s Chromecast dongles and Chromecast built-in platforms. It means you can use the Prime Video app on your Android or iOS device to stream content directly on your TV using Chromecast.
This is a welcome development for consumers, who suffered due to years of Amazon-Google fight. Missing from the deal announced Tuesday is Amazon’s Echo Show, which still doesn’t have the YouTube app. The agreement also doesn’t mention if or when Amazon Prime Video would become available on Google’s Nest Hub smart displays. Amazon doesn’t yet sell Google’s smart displays and speakers through its online store.
It took the two technology giants years to resolve the dispute. In the meantime, they both lost some customers. People who want to enjoy both YouTube and Amazon Prime Video on the same platform turned to devices like Apple TV and Roku. Amazon’s Prime Video comes bundled with Prime subscription, which has more than 100 million paying subscribers across the globe.
Google was losing customers by not supporting Prime Video on Chromecast and Android TV. And Amazon was losing customers due to the lack of YouTube on Fire TV platform. It’s good for consumers as well as the two companies that they have worked things out.
How the Amazon-Google fight began
The dispute began back in 2015 when the online retail behemoth refused to sell Google’s Chromecast on its online store because Chromecast was competing with its own Fire products. Amazon and Google are fierce competitors in voice assistants, advertising, video streaming, cloud services, and other segments.
In 2017, Google responded to Amazon’s move by pulling the YouTube app from Amazon’s Echo Show smart screens. It had also taken YouTube down from the Fire TV products. Neither company wanted the other to benefit from their own services, and it ended up depriving consumers of a great streaming experience. That’s why YouTube was missing from the Fire TV, and Prime Video from Android TV and Chromecast.
Amazon started selling Chromecast products only in December 2018, roughly a year after it promised to do so. In April this year, the two companies confirmed that they would start supporting each other’s streaming services on their respective platforms.
