If you ask the smart speaker to show you a YouTube video, it fails and Alexa just say this: “Currently, Google is not supporting Youtube on Echo Show.” The Echo Show, if you’re not familiar, is the Alexa-enabled smart speaker that has a screen on it so you can do stuff like… watch video. And YouTube is the internet’s largest source of said video.
One of the core use cases of the Echo Show for some people might be watching cooking lessons or music videos — on YouTube.
Google has a history of being particular about how YouTube gets displayed on apps made by other companies, citing the terms of service on its API. Way back in 2013, it got in a tiff with Microsoft over the YouTube app on Windows Phone, blocking the app and leading Microsoft to just revert to a web player for YouTube.
