[munificent]

Disclosure: I am a Googler, though not working on anything remotely near YouTube. Obvious caveat: this is just my personal opinion.

> With this backdrop, we temporarily took down our full-featured app when Google objected to it last May

If I remember right, this full-featured app included features like:

1. Allowing users to download videos even when the content provider disallowed that.

2. Allowing users to not view ads even when the content provider specifically required ads to be shown.

3. Using YouTube's branding without permission.

I am but a lowly engineer and the actions of executives confuse me, but I don't see how Microsoft didn't realize the above was batshit crazy. I can only assume this is some sort of weird ploy.

YouTube's entire business model is about getting content providers to put videos up there so that people will watch ads to see them. If you let people take videos off the site, or just skip the ads, that breaks the fundamental business proposition.

This would be like me making an Android app called "Bing from Micrsoft" that let you perform bing searches but then stripped out all of the ads. Microsoft would shut that shit down, with good reason.

> When we first built a YouTube app for Windows Phone, we did so with the understanding that Google claimed to grow its business based on open access to its platforms and content, a point it reiterated last year.

"Open access to content" doesn't mean "ignore the requirements of the people who created that content". People make their livelihoods producing YouTube videos and the only way that money flows to those creators is because of ads. If you make a Windows Phone app that lets you watch Cooking with Dog without the ads, you aren't doing Francis any favors by giving out "open access" to his content.

(Yes, I did just imply that they are the dog's videos. He is the host, after all.)

[itafroma]

> 1. Allowing users to download videos even when the content provider disallowed that.

This was poor judgment from Microsoft, and as far as I can see, was addressed in this new version of the app.

> 2. Allowing users to not view ads even when the content provider specifically required ads to be shown.

Blocking on this basis alone is a double standard from Google. As others have pointed out, the iOS app developed by Apple never showed ads, even if the videos were monetized. Google never unilaterally revoked Apple's API access over it.

Though one could argue that they did and that's why iOS 6+ doesn't include it. But that doesn't explain why Apple TV, to this day, still plays all videos—even with required monetization—without ads. Why is it okay for Apple to do this, but not Microsoft? Why won't Google license YouTube API access on the same terms?

> 3. Using YouTube's branding without permission.

As above, why won't Google license this to Microsoft on the same terms as other competitors? Why is it tying a "must be HTML5" requirement to Microsoft alone, and no one else? Apple's Apple TV app isn't in HTML5 and uses the YouTube branding.

Heck, there's even a third-party app for iOS called Jasmine[1] that is a native app (embedding just the HTML5 video player inside the app as y2bd points out below) and uses YouTube branding. Why is Google making it more difficult for Microsoft to do the exact same thing? We're clearly not getting the full story from anyone here.

[1]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jasmine-youtube-client/id554...

[davorak]

> Blocking on this basis alone is a double standard from Google. As others have pointed out, the iOS app developed by Apple never showed ads, even if the videos were monetized. Google never unilaterally revoked Apple's API access over it.

It has been mentioned else where in the thread that apple had licence from google to use youtube without ads and when that licence ended they removed the app from the market.

>Though one could argue that they did and that's why iOS 6+ doesn't include it. But that doesn't explain why Apple TV, to this day, still plays all videos—even with required monetization—without ads. Why is it okay for Apple to do this, but not Microsoft? Why won't Google license YouTube API access on the same terms?

Apple may very well have a licence for this as they did previously with the iphone app.

> As above, why won't Google license this to Microsoft on the same terms as other competitors?

The article does not even say if Microsoft has been seeking such or if Google has denied them. If they are/have been seeking then the author of the article should have included this fact to make their argument stronger, but if it is there I missed it.

> Heck, there's even a third-party app for iOS called Jasmine[1] that is a native app (embedding just the HTML5 video player inside the app as y2bd points out below) and uses YouTube branding. Why is Google making it more difficult for Microsoft to do the exact same thing? We're clearly not getting the full story from anyone here.

Big players get more attention because they have a larger effect. It would be unprofitable and unproductive for its long term survival for google to pay equal attention to small players transgressing rules as they do larger players.

[manacit]

I believe, and I could be wrong, that the iOS YouTube app was developed jointly by Apple and Google back when iOS first came out in 2007, when YT and mobile video was in an entirely different place than it is today.

Google signed some sort of license with Apple for access to YT via that app, and when it was up, they pulled the app (despite there being no official Google YT app at the time) from iOS. It's very possible that the ATV app for YT is still under some sort of license with Google, which is why it can play videos ad-free.

[Systemic33]

It all comes down to the fact that iOS is too significant source of users to give the cold shoulder. Windows Phone is still sufficiently small fraction of the market, that Google has more interest in degrading the Windows Phone OS instead of earning from the additional users.

I think this is purely a game of numbers, and if/when WP gets big enough that the additional income from eg. youtube outweighs the income generated from users who picks android next time.

[y2bd]

A nitpick, but although Jasmine is a native iOS application, when it comes to actually playing a video, it opens a YouTube video embedded in a web view. That is why you see the YouTube player for a brief moment before the video starts.

[itafroma]

That's true; I updated my comment to clarify that. If that's the difference between Google being okay with it and not, I guess I don't see where the chasm of difference is:

* Microsoft claims they've enabled ads on YouTube videos. How, if they're not using the same technique as Jasmine?

* If they are using the same technique as Jasmine, why is that not enough? Why is Google still saying (or at least Microsoft is claiming that Google is still saying) the entire app must be HTML5?

* If the technique Jasmine uses does, in fact, satisfy Google's "HTML5" requirement, but for some reason Microsoft isn't using it (but somehow is playing ads anyway), why doesn't Microsoft just do it? Embedding a web view into a native app isn't exactly rocket surgery: why do they claim it's technically difficult and time consuming?

[y2bd]

Assuming they figured out how to display ads without using the embedded HTML5 player, a guess I can offer (as a WP user) as to why they don't is that if they do, the video would launch in the default webview video player, which is honestly pretty terrible. You can't even scrub through videos. The MS-built YouTube application however had a much-more featured video player[1].

Quite a few WP applications that are video-centric (such as the non-MS YouTube apps, Netflix, etc.) use their own much-improved video player. Even Microsoft provides a better video player for usage in WP/W8 applications[2]. Making an improved video player on a per-app basis probably would require a lot less overhead than changing the system-wide video player.

This is all just a guess of course.

[1] http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/youtube/dcbb1ac6..., check the screenshots

[2] http://playerframework.codeplex.com/

[mehrdada]

My gut tells me that everything falls down to your last bullet, i.e. Google does not care if the full app is HTML5, but they want the an HTML5 YouTube player with appropriate DRM to be embedded in the app so they have full control on the ads and other stuff they are serving, and Microsoft is deliberately trying to avoid it and misleads everyone into thinking that they require full HTML5 app to be implemented.

You know what? If it is time consuming to implement, it's Microsoft's problem, not anyone else's. Lots of people would be happy to get shitload of money from Microsoft and assemble a team to implement it if their problem is difficulty and they are so generous to be willing to pay cash, as they brag about in their blogpost ("...at Microsoft's expense...").

[HelloMcFly]

> 2. Allowing users to not view ads even when the content provider specifically required ads to be shown.

This one isn't quite so clear. Microsoft had no way of showing ads, and Google provided them none. Google's "solution" for them was to direct them to a skinned version of mobile YouTube... which also didn't show ads.

[makomk]

The mobile version of YouTube also didn't show videos that the uploader had blocked from displaying on mobile (for example, because they didn't want people watching it without ads). Microsoft's app ignored those restrictions amd showed the videos anyway without any ads.

[davorak]

> which also didn't show ads.

But should respect content owners preference for where and how their videos are shown.

[zobzu]

Note that, according to point 1 & 2, adblockers should be forbidden by law and browsers should all include DRM by law.

HTML5 provides the video, the client just choose to stream me but can choose to save it as well, that's no constrain here. Likewise, the browser can choose to display whatever it pleases, adverts or not.

[saraid216]

You realize that they're probably investigating or lobbying for doing just that, right? AFAIK, the only reason no one has gone after AdBlock yet is because they do not actually have enough users to make a demonstrable dent on the advertisers' revenue streams.

I really wouldn't be surprised to see this kind of legislation in 5-10 years, or sooner.

[Fuzzwah]

Well the upside of all this drama is that I just found out about Cooking with Dog. Thank you.

[munificent]

I spend entirely too much time watching Cooking with Dog and Essential Pépin with my kids.