Last week, a brewing row between Amazon and Google became a war. As revenge for Amazon refusing to stock Google’s line of gadgets - the company’s Chromecast internet TV box, Google Home speaker and, most recently, its Nest line of smart thermostats - Google removed access to YouTube from Amazon’s own Fire TV devices. In defending the move, Google also pointed out that Amazon has refused to make its own internet TV service, Prime Video, work on Chromecast devices.

There are two curious things about this spat. One is that everybody involves loses. By restricting access to YouTube, Google will forgo the lucrative advertising revenues that come from it; Amazon, meanwhile, misses out on both sales of Google products and its own, which are now crippled by the loss of YouTube and are less attractive to shoppers.

The other thing to note about this dispute is that it would have been incomprehensible five years ago. Back then, Google’s Chromecast did not exist, neither had it bought Nest. Amazon had no such thing as Prime Video or Fire TV. The only major property that existed back then was YouTube.

This is not the first time that big tech companies have embarked on rearguard action. Apple restricts most of its software to its own phones and tablets, for example. Microsoft spent years ensuring its own web browser, Internet Explorer, got special privileges on Windows.