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by throwanem 3394 days ago
Apple's trying to lead in the space with their Apple TV product. The trouble is that getting actual TV content that way is difficult or impossible; news and premium channels have fragmented and incomplete offerings, but there's no good way of which I'm aware to get content from the broadcast networks, and certainly no option to pay a flat fee for content from all of them.

That's a huge drawback for Apple's offering, because a whole lot of people want to watch that stuff. If they want to keep their product relevant, they have to address it - but they now have a huge new problem in that every Apple TV has a YouTube app, and so do a lot of competitors in the space. They could've had first mover advantage on this, because up to now no one has managed it - but now it seems YouTube has, which leaves them playing catch-up.
1 comments
madeofpalk 3394 days ago
???

Apple doesn't give out Apple TVs for free. The beauty of owning the hardware and platform like Apple does is that they still make money from other peoples services.

Now, whether they have a compelling enough TV hardware + OS/software for people to buy and watch Youtube TV over... that's another question. But I think that question exists regardless of whether Apple makes a linear broadcast TV streaming service or not.

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throwanem 3394 days ago
That's the point I'm making - Apple isn't really out to sell YouTube boxes, and never has been. If that's all they can do, they may as well exit the space, because there are cheaper, better-spec'd YouTube boxes which will eat so much of their lunch that it'll be uneconomical to continue manufacture and marketing.
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madeofpalk 3394 days ago
I disagree.

The "reports" earlier, when Twitter was bidding for NFL (or NRL? I'm not American or into sport) Apple considered a bid but ultimately decided not to because they realised that whoever got the rights would just still stream it on Apple TV regardless.

I definitely acknowledge that Apple TV at the moment is Apple's compromise of not being able to put a better service out there, but I still think they're very happy selling people their hardware for other people To make software services over the top.

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