Buying movies and TV shows from Google was a huge mistake

When you purchase something instead of renting, you typically get to completely own the product and use it whichever way or however long you want. But things aren’t as straightforward when it comes to owning digital media as that buy button is, in a way, meaningless, since you never get to own that piece of content. Even if you spend a lot of money buying movies and TV shows from services like Google TV, the ownership is subject to Google’s terms and, in many cases, whim.

So, if one day Google recklessly decides to drop your purchased movie from its catalog, shut down its service (never discount that possibility with Google), or even worsen your experience, it can very well do that. In fact, that last bit is exactly what is happening with your content right now, with no plausible reason for Google’s apathy towards its existing products and services.

Let me tell you a joke

But it’s in 480p

During the pandemic four years ago (remember this timeline; it will come up again),YouTube,just like every other streaming service, defaulted the video quality to 480p to keep the server load in check.The decision made sense since nearly the entire world’s population suddenly had all the time to themselves, and watching videos all day was the best they could do while quarantined. YouTube, however, did let you switch to a higher resolution manually.

While YouTube offered the optionto switch to higher quality for regular videos, purchased and rented content was limited to 480p with no better streaming quality options on the website. It was excusable and a fair thing to do in an unprecedented situation. I’ll let Google have this one.

But, we recently noticed that Google has “forgotten” to reset that limit.Our purchasedlibrary ofmovies and TV showsis still cappedat 480p in the desktop browser.That’s all of 854×480pixels,in 2024. Let that sink in (though not the way Elon Musk did). In all these four years, not even a single person at Google realized they could now go back to normal when the world already did a couple of years ago.The low resolution is likely used as a type of DRM to avoid pirates ripping the content, but it’s still a limited experience for people who paidfullprice for their movies and TV shows when itvery muchshouldn’t be.

Note that this senseless video quality limit doesn’t apply to mobile apps or TVs. It applies only to the YouTube website in your desktop browser, so if you’re lazing on the couch or in bed with your laptop, you will have to put up with junk video quality. 480p videos look terrible even on asmallphone screen — you can imagine how much worse it must look on a 16-inch laptop.No wait, you don’t need to imagine that; you canactuallyexperience it withyourpurchasedmedia on YouTube right now.

This is all made worseasGoogle is pushing users to watch purchased media on YouTube after shuttering the Google Play Movies & TV website/app in January 2024.While YouTube is a better place to watch videos with its excellent player controls and features, a nonsensical 480p limit in desktop browsers hobbles the movie experiences we all paid top dollars to purchase.

Google’s product (ill-)experience

Google making its services better over time — now that’s a joke!

Forthe longesttime, Nvidia Shield devices have been the best Android TV boxesthat offera top-tier experience sans any clutter. That’sthe reasonthe product managed to create a strong user community.However, thatvery community is up in arms against Google for wrecking their experience.

After a visual upgrade toAndroid TV, the home screen on the Shield TV is now riddled with ads in the name of recommendations. It even plays them automatically in full screen and with audio if you don’t move the cursor for a bit. Speaking of deprecating a good product, this has to be among Google’s top fiascos, but it still isn’t surprising since we don’t expect any better from the company.

And I’m not even starting with the mess the simultaneously existing Google TV and Android TV launchers have been. Google TV is a face-lifted launcher that runs on top of Android TV and is also an app for buying and renting content. Android TV separately has a new launcher that resembles Google TV but isn’t exactly, while the older Android TV UI also exists on older TV sets.Yeah,try wrapping your head around this because I can’t, nor can Google, apparently.

With Google Play Movies & TV now gone, there is no dedicated app on your TV to find your owned content, which now lives under the Shop tab on Android TV, with things a little easier on the Google TV side with a dedicated library tab and shortcut rows.For Android TV users this meansyour library is hidden behind fifteen clicks, fifteen clicks through the Shop tab advertising all manner ofmoviesand TV shows.There’s also the YouTube app, whichisn’t muchbetter whenit comes tonavigating to your library, taking a bunch of clicks to get to your content, coincidentally in a UI filled with ad-like content vying for your attention.Sufficeitto say the experience stinks for those who have invested in the Play Movies & TV app that are now forced into much worse UIs.

How can we trust Google again?

You got me

Ultimitely, Google is digging itsowngrave, presenting itself asa fickleand unreliable brand that pushes customers away. People can’t even trust Google for simple stuff anymore, like purchasing media. Given the company’s track record, there is a solid chance that one day, it will decide to shut its Google TV service, and the content you bought will be gone forever. Google needs to get with the program and start putting its customers first instead of ruining more and more of our services with low-effort ad-filled trash, which isexactlywhat Android TV and Google TV have turned into as theyare increasingly filledwith ads and horrible UI designs that push us towards those ads.