Amazon Fire TV Blocking Deep Links from Third Party Apps, Making Content Discovery More Difficult
The streaming industry can be as cutthroat as any other, and some third-party aggregation apps are finding that out the hard way. According to Jared Newman from TechHive, Amazon no longer allows apps like Plex running on Fire TV operating systems to deep link into other streaming apps.
Users searching Plex or other platforms that can browse titles across multiple different streaming services aren’t able to click links that open the app that individual titles appear on. That means that Fire TV users cannot open their Plex account, for instance, and be taken directly to the Disney+ app if they click on the content card for “Strange World.”
This severely limits the functionality of apps like Plex and JustWatch. Without the ability to deep link, they essentially become just another search engine, like Google or Bing. Plex vice-president of marketing Scott Hancock stated in an interview that he believes a shift in Amazon policies is to blame for the move, according to Tech Hive.
“They asked us to remove [the deep linking feature], basically,” Hancock said. “I think that they changed their policies.”
Amazon clearly wants Fire TV users to navigate using the Fire TV menu, and no other service. This is likely because the company thinks that it is a good way to steer Fire TV customers to Prime Video. Fire TV menus are often saturated with ads for series on Prime Video, and they don’t allow users to easily customize their interface as other streaming device operating systems do.
The move to steer customers toward proprietary content is wise from a monetary perspective for Amazon, but it flies in the face of what consumers report wanting most: a unified streaming platform. A survey from December found that 86% of respondents wanted a single service that would bring together all of their basic personal information and show them content recommendations from across all of the streaming services that they subscribe to at once.
This is essentially what aggregators like Plex are trying to do. The move to block deep links on third-party services could pay short-term dividends for Amazon if more Fire TV users sign up for Prime Video, but in the long term, it may hurt the company. Currently, 72% of streaming customers say that they grow frustrated trying to find something to watch, and that frustration could lead to an exodus of Fire TV customers if these issues continue.
Fire TV streaming sticks and smart TVs still offer excellent overall functionality and are often some of the best values on the market. But making deep links to other streaming apps unavailable on third-party aggregators in the name of short-term profits is potentially short-sighted, and could damage the company’s reputation.