It's certainly their prerogative to do so. No law requires Amazon to carry every product on the market. Their public justification for dropping Apple TV and Google's Chromecast from their store is transparently false, but it is their store, after all.
Just a reminder that Amazon doesn't carry everything, and people should still look around when they go online to buy stuff. And I say that as a guy who buys a lot through Amazon.
I'm sure some major business calculus has gone on behind Amazon's closed doors to decide if this is the right thing to do. To me, it harms the Amazon store brand more to play these kind of proprietary games than it will benefit Amazon's own digital streaming equipment. And, like I said, that remains Amazon's decision to make.
It's just something for consumers to keep in mind.
Amazon has been known to strongarm others to get what they want. When some traditional publishers didn't play ball with them, the 'Buy' button mysteriously disappeared from a lot of that publisher's books. It reappeared when the publisher changed their mind. I think this is a similar scenario.
One article I read mentioned that items like Roku, PS3, and other devices are still available. Those devices can be used to watch Amazon Prime. Just guessing but I think Amazon said, 'Hey, Apple, let your people watch Prime on your stuff." Apple said no, so Amazon said, 'F you then. We're not going to sell your stuff."
Makes perfect sense to an old industry veteran like me. Most people are not considering Amazon's position: they make peanuts (very short margins) off those items. $35 chromecast's net cost is about $32, and crApple offers similar margins to anyone except themselves. It's a razor/blade sennario: the real money is in the usage. Ads, apps, rentals, etc. Remember, they are now in that business with fire sticks/boxes that generate income through that sales model.
Their official logic, about "it being for the best customer experience" is almost identical to the wording that justifies DRM'ing coffee makers and recent ink refill patent lawsuits.
What I take from this: "For the best possible customer experience" is both necessary and sufficient logic to justify any corporate action.
+Marty Shaw I love the breadth and depth of stuff I can shop for at Amazon, and I demonstrate that by using them for a lot of my non-store buying (and, often, for buying stuff that I see at a store that I don't need immediately).
The slip side to that, of course, is that they are able to coerce others who want access to that retail space to go along with what they want. Though that's no different from how Barnes & Noble (or Wal-Mart) behaves in their own arenas.
Though there is the difference now of, as +keith olszewski notes, Amazon competing with Apple and Google (et al.) in this space. That makes the tactic a bit more problematic.
I don't shed too many tears for Apple (which has been a retail dick in the past) or Google; they can bypass Amazon without too much trouble (I believe I bought my old Chromecast directly from Google). It does mean, though, that a lesser light (a Roku, for example) would have little choice but to toe Amazon's line. That represents a more significant market distortion.
I'm not suggesting boycotting Amazon by any means, just being aware of looking beyond Amazon's doors when seeking to buy something.
As a side note, I don't understand the "Chromecast doesn't support Prime" argument by Amazon, since the Chromecast APIs are open for their use; it's rather that Prime doesn't support Chromecast.
And I can watch Prime movies just fine, from a Chrome browser window on Chromecast. Though I don't have to because my Blu-ray player supports Prime.
I’m boycotting Amazon. Not because of this – you don’t go into a Ford garage and ask for a Toyota.
I’m against the muscle that they use, the bullying of publishers, the control over the market they exert. They are just a warehouse – they don’t DO anything, they don’t add value, yet their Head of Book Buying effectively controls what English language books get published – If Amazon won’t carry it, its probably not worth publishing.
I object to the corporate culture that breaks its employees.
I object to the tax shenanigans that sells books in stuff in Britain that magically doesn’t attract British taxes.
Google and Apple are big and ugly enough themselves (Do No Harm my arse) to look after themselves.