How Apple TV users can show Amazon tough love
So, if you listen to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos we need to build robot factories in space in order to keep producing consumer durables to sell to the small percentage of people on this planet who would then be able to afford them (well, he said to protect the environment, but if no one makes anything no one gets paid, so it comes to the same thing).
Apart from thinking this sounds a little like a ghastly shopkeeper’s vision of some kind of dystopian, post-apocalyptic Hell, Bezos also told Apple users that we’re not going to get any kind of an Apple TV Amazon Video app until Apple agrees to “acceptable business terms”.
He told Recode:
“When we sell those devices, we want our player — our Prime Video player — to be on the device, and we want it to be on the device with acceptable business terms. You can always get the player on the device. The question is, can you get it on there with acceptable business terms?”
Now it seems pretty clear that’s going to be some kind of argument over the 30 percent charge Apple takes for things like subscription sign-ins and movie payments, but I can’t imagine these charges are particularly onerous, given Netflix and Now.tv already play ball. I guess Amazon and Apple both deserve to pump cash into their money mountains, but I’m minded to think Apple probably creates more jobs on the planet than Amazon ever will, given the latter firm’s commitment to low prices, automation and drone delivery.
Fortunately, despite Amazon’s attempt to create what could be seen as its own walled garden around its media efforts, Apple TV users can still get to watch video via Prime using these simple instructions.
(Loosely summarized as: use an iOS app, or use a Mac, and AirPlay.)
PS: Please just make a deal. How much money are you really losing if you do? Not a lot, I imagine. I think this is likely to eventually be shown up as an artificial slice of protectionism in action, and in my opinion it’s inappropriate behavior for a company that does so well out of breaking open industries, from publishing to clothing retail.
Take that, Bezos. PPS: Pay more tax.
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