If you’re someone who previously enjoyed watching YouTube TV on Roku, you might be a little miffed about the YouTube TV app’s sudden disappearance from the platform. Don’t worry: YouTube has your back in the most convoluted way possible. It has now added YouTube TV to its YouTube app on Roku, essentially forcing you to open one app to open another. Brilliant.
A blog post by the YouTube team announced the move, which is currently being rolled out to all Roku owners. YouTube says it is still “working to come to an agreement with Roku,” which means there’s still hope for the tried-and-true app to come back. Still, the site does have other plans if those talks go south. “We’re also in discussions with other partners to secure free streaming devices in case YouTube TV members face any access issues on Roku,” YouTube said.
This whole situation is a little disappointing, as it has essentially shown off the ugly side of cord cutting, which was sold as salvation to many who were fed up with cable. Some parts of it are humorous, too, though. You’d think YouTube wasn’t a part of Google by the way it’s talking about getting “free streaming devices” for customers. Doesn’t Google sell a streaming device? Couldn’t you just give a bunch of Chromecasts to people? In fact — why not just do that in the first place?
It’ll be interesting to see how the rest of this debacle plays out. For now, if you want to watch YouTube TV on Roku, you at least have a way to do it. It’s not great, but it’s something.
Update: The Verge just got a hold of a comment from Roku about Google’s move here with YouTube TV and the YouTube app. It goes as follows:
“Google’s actions are the clear conduct of an unchecked monopolist bent on crushing fair competition and harming consumer choice. The bundling announcement by YouTube highlights the kind of predatory business practices used by Google that Congress, Attorney Generals and regulatory bodies around the world are investigating. Roku has not asked for one additional dollar in financial value from YouTubeTV. We have simply asked Google to stop their anticompetitive behavior of manipulating user search results to their unique financial benefit and to stop demanding access to sensitive data that no other partner on our platform receives today. In response, Google has continued its practice of blatantly leveraging its YouTube monopoly to force an independent company into an agreement that is both bad for consumers and bad for fair competition.”
