Roku is kicking YouTube off of its streaming platform – here’s why

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A few months ago, Roku removed YouTube TV from their devices after the company failed to strike a deal with Google. Now, the company has let its customers know that a deal still hasn’t been made, and new Roku devices can’t download YouTube TV or the regular YouTube app.

In a message to customers on the company’s blog, Roku confirmed the bad news for its users. The post claims that Google has made unfair, anti-competitive requests for the YouTube app on Roku devices. Roku says, ‘our concerns with Google are not about money,” but rather that it wants to ensure that any deal made is fair and competitive.

According to the blog post above, the company claims that Google, “requires that we (Roku) preference YouTube over other content providers.” The post also says that Google demanded search, voice, and data features that it does not request from other streaming platforms.

Yes. Here’s statement. Google just confirmed to me that’s correct. pic.twitter.com/gVW7mRp7ct

— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) October 21, 2021

Google has published its own response, saying that, “Roku has once again chosen to make unproductive and baseless claims rather than try to work constructively with us.” The statement goes on to confirm that the YouTube and YouTube TV apps will be unavailable for download starting on December 9.

Anyone who already has either of the apps already installed on their Roku device or TV will still be able to access the apps. This new development will just stop any users from downloading the apps in the future.

This is some pretty bad news and hopefully, the companies can work out some sort of deal in the future. YouTube is a massive platform and Roku and its customers benefit greatly from having the apps on their devices.

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