Google has announced that it’s discontinuing support for Play Movies on smart TVs and will make purchases available on the TV’s YouTube app instead.
In a small posting on its support forum, Google said that from mid-June the Google Play Movies & TV app will no longer be available on Roku, Samsung, LG, and Vizio smart TVs. Previously purchased films will be available in the YouTube app under “Your Movies”.
I’m not happy. Up to this point, Play Movies was my video store of choice: I don’t have a huge collection but before Disney+ came along, it was where I bought my Marvel films and cartoons, sorry, animated features. The really good thing was that Play Movies was available across smartphone, tablet, smart TV and web. It also had a simple user interface with curated content – children could not access inappropriate material.
And now we have YouTube. Clearly Google has learned nothing from the bloatware that is iTunes or the mess that Spotify is rapidly becoming, and is trying to throw all media into YouTube so that it can further sell adverts and tracking. The home of user-generated content has already gobbled up Play Music and unless I’m very much mistaken, it looks like the writing is on the wall for Play Movies too. The parental controls on YouTube are next to useless and going by the comments on the support forum, I’m not alone in my displeasure.
Everything doesn’t have to be a social media experience. I just want to watch my films: I’m not going like, favourite or subscribe something I’ve already purchased.
And Google, just in case no-one’s mentioned it, I don’t think anyone associates YouTube with quality programming.