Samsung’s unloved video streaming service is shutting down on November 20th, after a lukewarm start and plummet in usage in the months after.
In a market dominated by YouTube, it was always going to be an uphill battle for Samsung Milk Video. The service worked with BuzzFeed and College Humor, but could not attract the viewers Google, Vimeo, and Twitch have won over the years.
Milk Video also suffers from a range of bugs that have plagued the service, forcing users to find the content elsewhere. In the Google Play store, it averaged 3.7 stars out of 5, but for long periods reviews were all 1 star, due to issues with videos not starting.
This lack of polish and quick updates was one of the final nails for Milk Video. It already suffered from a severe lack of content and subscription options, something YouTube has built for years to make users feel more included in the system.
Samsung will continue to maintain its Milk Music service, a streaming service for music and music videos. It is a big loss for the Milk brand, Samsung’s odd name for all things multimedia.
"Thank you for using Samsung Milk Video", says Samsung on the Google Play store. "While we remain committed to providing premium entertainment services, we have decided to end support for the Samsung Milk Video app as of November 20, 2015".
The focus on competing against Google might be ending, after failing to beat the search giant in several service markets. When Samsung launched the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge, there was a lot more focus on third-party services than its own offshoot offerings.
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