If you want to learn about anything with visual clues on the Internet, YouTube is one of the best domains to head to. This is why Amazon's Echo Show, their AI-based assistant with a display, also used YouTube for anything that the user demanded. However, in an unexpected turn of events, YouTube has been disabled on the Amazon Echo Show; not by Amazon but Google.
Amazon Echo Show users across the US have been unable to access YouTube on their Echo Show. A message pops up, stating this: "Currently, Google is not supporting YouTube on Echo Show. Now, this is slightly worrying as the one of the Echo Show's primary USPs is the ability to access YouTube on demand with the help of voice.
But don't think for a minute that this is some kind of a technical glitch; this is a kind of cold war between both the software giants. According to a statement to The Verge, Google said, " We’ve been in negotiations with Amazon for a long time, working towards an agreement that provides great experiences for customers on both platforms. Amazon’s implementation of YouTube on the Echo Show violates our terms of service, creating a broken user experience. We hope to be able to reach an agreement and resolve these issues soon."
Amazon's answer to this was, "Google made a change today at around 3 pm. YouTube used to be available to our shared customers on Echo Show. As of this afternoon, Google has chosen to no longer make YouTube available on Echo Show, without explanation and without notification to customers. There is no technical reason for that decision, which is disappointing and hurts both of our customers."
Now, this clearly seems to be a spat between the two. It is still unclear as to what violations has Amazon made while providing YouTube on the Echo Show. And since it will be some time before both the parties sort their differences on the roundtable, it is the Echo Show customers who will be suffering. We only hope that both the software giants sort out their fight and don't let it affect the world.
