The war between Amazon and Google continues. For those unfamiliar Google refuses to allow Youtube to be accessed by Amazon FireTVs and as a result Amazon will not allow Google products to be sold on the Amazon store (such as Google assistant products, phones, and pixelbooks).
The latest in the war has Amazon now going after Nest, the smart thermostat company recently acquired by Google. According to Business Insider, this decision to remove nest products from the Amazon store came from the big boss himself.
Unfortunately this decision will continue to punish Google users with Amazon Prime in the long run just as Google’s decision to keep Fire TV users from using Youtube will hurt Fire TV customers wanting to access Youtube. Though I understand both sides of the debate and am in realization that Amazon and Google is in a fight to command the home assistant market, I find myself more angry with Amazon than I do Google.
Amazon, who built their software on top of Android, started this war when they refused to allow Android users to access Amazon Prime from tablets, phones, and set top boxes years back. Over time we started seeing the Prime apps appearing for download on Google devices after the fact, and now this war has spilled over into the highly competitive home assistant market.
It is going to be interesting to see if Google’s latest partnership with Best Buy, having a Google assistant section with an active Google rep similar to what Samsung has been doing with their phones, will help them overcome the potential loss of not having a presence in the Amazon marketplace.
The question is who should and will end of caving first and will we see a mutual truce any time soon?
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