Jeff Bezos explains why you can't buy an Apple TV or Chromecast on Amazon

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Amazon Fire Phone Jeff Bezos

Getty / David Ryder

If you look on Amazon, you will find a bunch of different TV streaming devices for sale, like Roku, Playstation, and its own Fire TV.

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What you won't find, however, is Apple TV or Google's Chromecast streaming device, which Amazon stopped selling last year because it didn't "interact well" with Amazon's own video-streaming service, Prime Video.

However, it would be technically possible to build a version of Amazon Prime Video on either device. So, what's the problem?

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A lack of "acceptable business terms," according to CEO Jeff Bezos, who spoke on stage at Vox Media's Code Conference.

When asked why Amazon didn't build its apps for Chromecast or Apple TV or sell those products on the site, here's what Bezos said:

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"We're happy to sell competitive products on Amazon - we do it all day. When we sell those devices, we want our player to be on the device with acceptable business terms. You can always get the player on the device, but can you do so with acceptable business terms?"

When asked asked to elaborate, Bezos demurred by saying that private business discussions belonged in private.

This statement does seem to confirm a common assumption though, that Amazon doesn't want to bring its video app to the Apple TV - or thus sell the device on its own store - because Apple takes a 30% cut of anything sold within its apps and Amazon didn't want to give a share of its Prime Video shares to Apple.

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.

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