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Amazon Will Soon Stop Selling Google's 'Nest' Smart Home Products (theverge.com) 47

Posted by EditorDavid from the leaving-the-nest dept.
An anonymous reader quotes The Verge: Nest products won't be sold by Amazon.com any longer once current stock runs out, according to a report from Business Insider. Amazon last year declined to offer some of Nest's newer products like the Nest Cam IQ and latest-generation smart thermostat. After weeks of simply ignoring the products and being unresponsive to Nest, Amazon informed the company of its decision by phone late in the year and said the directive "came from the top," something Nest took to mean it had been handed down by CEO Jeff Bezos. There has been no direct confirmation of this, however.

As a result, Nest has decided to halt further restocks at Amazon once remaining product inventory is exhausted. It's unclear whether third-party sellers will continue selling Nest gadgets, but Amazon itself will not. In removing itself from Amazon, Nest's reasoning is that the powerful retailer should be selling its entire product family or nothing at all.
The Verge calls it a "dumb, anti-consumer feud."
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Amazon Will Soon Stop Selling Google's 'Nest' Smart Home Products More

Amazon Will Soon Stop Selling Google's 'Nest' Smart Home Products

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  • Just like appletv in 2015 https://apple.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]

  • Is it just because Nest's business plan competes with the plan for their own Echo devices, or is there something they've found out about Nest that we should all know? (I mean something other than the blatant disregard for customer privacy and safety of which we were already aware.)

    • Pretty much yep. They did the same thing with Chromecasts and Apple TVs last year - and also banned 3rd parties from selling them on Amazon - because they didn't want big rivals selling their hardware that competes with the FireTV and Fire stick. Strangely they left Roku alone, but that's probably because they don't see Roku going the distance long term.

    • More likely retaliation for google killing the youtube app on some of amazon's products. And then killing the ability for web browsers on amazon products also being able to access youtube. That seemed pretty underhanded.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Maritz ( 1829006 )

      Amazon really must have supreme confidence in their own products, seeing as they don't allow any competitors on their store.

      Duly noted. Your stuff must be fucking shit. Thanks for the heads up.

  • Is there going to be some sort of explanation for the site being down for the last few days?

    Was it a shakedown? Did slashdot pay any ransom?

  • Why not Amazon?

    • Why just Amazon? Breaking up Google would also be a positive.

      I feel bad when giant corps squeeze out innovative upstarts. I'm not upset when two giant corporations start duking it out. It usually is a better result for the consumer than when they're planning nice.

      • Does anyone think it will be better for us if Amazon ultimately crushes the google? Or if the google crushes Amazon? Or if Apple swallows both of them?

        I think they should adjust the tax system in favor of increased choice and more freedom. The corporate taxes on profits should be progressive based on market share. You can even divide it up based on each part of the business, but the basic idea that any company that becomes too dominant would find it advantageous and effectively MORE profitable to divide its

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

          (Shareholders would come out ahead, too, since the real competition would actually encourage the pie to become bigger.)

          The market size depends on demand and price, not competition. If competition resulted in lowered prices, but demand did not increase enough as a result, then the market would be smaller. If the three putative Windows versions were binary compatible, then there would be little increased demand from people buying more than one version, and the driver would be PC sales, but increased competition in the OS market probably wouldn't reduce PC cost enough to stimulate many more sales.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shanen ( 462549 )

            I basically believe that real competition would drive real innovation. As it applies specifically to OSes, that would actually justify BUYING a new OS from a competing company. I'm also believing that some of the competing companies would make better decisions than others, thus causing their profits and stock prices to increase, and offsetting decreases in the profits and share prices of other companies. (The shareholders would of course also receive equal shares when the company was divided, so they would

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

              It's not unreasonable to assume competition might drive innovation, but that doesn't necessarily obviously translate into a larger market. The counterpoint would be that there might also be duplication of effort compared to fewer market participants, or cooperation, and thus inefficiency. I don't think you can presuppose either solution offers more at any given instant, or that the solution is binary.

              Without compatibility the market may be fragmented, which can damage markets, or just lead to one main versi

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by shanen ( 462549 )

                While you make some interesting points, I think you need to back up and consider your priorities. If you think freedom is sufficiently good, then you would naturally reduce your concerns with maximizing efficiency and profits. In particular, I regard profit seeking as insane, because it is a problem with no solution. There is no maximum value of profit that could possibly solve "the problem" of needing a maximum value of profit.

                After many years of consideration, I have reached a number of conclusions about

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
                  My point is that it is a systems problem, which may have a globally optimal solution, and local ones at any given point in time, but that you'd need to model the system to understand the behaviour. All too often there is an assumption that simple maxims hold in all circumstances, but reality is likely to be more nuanced and complex.

    • Why not Amazon?

      The world has changed. We have staffed every level of the hierarchy all the way to the top with lapdogs and yes-men.

      The FCC is now a blatant puppy of the telecom majors.
      The government has achieved an almost perfect level of partisan party line bickering completely ignoring the people they represent.
      And Amazon will not only not be broken up, but it is still in the honeymoon process of buying Wholefoods, the government just made it bigger.

    • Amazon is not Bell. Yes, Amazon is powerful, but there are still many, many competitors online who also sell products, including Nest, both online and off. walmart.com, homedepot.com, lowes.com are just three.

      By contrast, at the height of AT&T, you couldn't get phone service from anyone else, even if you wanted to.

      Yes, Amazon has a certain stranglehold on a segment of the population, people who won't buy a product if it's not on Amazon. Sounds a lot like Apple fans, doesn't it! But nobody is calling for

  • So theyâ(TM)re removing a competing product line.

  • maybe related to the ring purchase by amazon a few days ago.nest and ring will compete in the video doorbell business (and maybe in the smart thermostat business as well)

  • I think Google and Amazon’s feud could jeopardize Net Neutrality.

    While it’s one thing to want to avoid selling one another’s competing products, when you drag access to media content from Amazon Video and Google’s YouTube into the fray isn't that dangerously close to two network providers imposing restrictions over their respective content based on one’s network connection?

    Device sales should not impose restrictions on media access any more than your ISP connection should.

  • "dumb, anti-consumer feud"? (Score:3)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Sunday March 04, 2018 @01:54PM (#56206117)

    As far as I'm concerned, anything that slows the adoption of privacy-stealing, security-hole-ridden IOT gear like Nest, (and Alexa for that matter), is ultimately smart and pro-consumer. Putting this kind of thing in the hands of the average non-tech-savvy person is kind of like emptying a box of knives on a nursery-school floor. Somebody's gonna get hurt, and the damage won't necessarily be limited to the kids who actually pick up the knives and start playing with them.

  • Avoid counterfeits and order directly (Score:3)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Sunday March 04, 2018 @04:48PM (#56206917)
    ...from the manufacturers' websites. Many electronics companies now sell their goods directly, online thereby cutting out middle-men like Amazon. An added bonus is that the manufacturers often include the cost of post and packaging and returns in the price. I've recently bought stuff online from Apple, Sennheiser, and Bose, and have been very happy with their delivery times and returns policies.

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