In surprising turn of events, Amazon said on Tuesday that its smart speaker device Echo Show is no longer able to stream Youtube videos. The company said that the device lost access to Youtube since afternoon.
The matter appears to be a completely technical issue, but is not. The issue has actually brought the feud between Google (parent company of Youtube) and Amazon in open public. Both companies have issued statements, wherein they have openly resorted to blame games over the issue.
Amazon’s statement said that Google stopped Youtube access without any notification and there is no technical reason for doing so. Google, on other hand, claimed in its official statement that Echo Show violated company’s terms of service and thereby created a broken user experience.
As is well known, Google & Amazon are fierce competitors in several critical areas & services that spans across cloud computing, gadgets, online search etc. This also includes Amazon’s Echo Show, which directly competes with Google Home. While Echo Show has made quite a splash in the US market, Google Home’s sales figure so far hasn’t been very flattering.
Whether Google’s decision to bar Youtube stems from professional envy cannot be ascertained, but some experts may not shy away from pointing out conspiracy theory here.
Amazon Echo Show is the newest version of relatively older device, which is merely known as ‘Amazon Echo.’ Both devices offer almost same features, but Amazon Echo Show boosts a 7 inch LCD screen that can very well play any online video contents. Evidently, several experts believe that access to Youtube was the main USP of Echo Show and loss of access may not augur well for the device in long run.