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Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

arstechnica.com

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Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#161

Post by threadweaver34 »

enumjorge wrote: post #44

> Not many people want to trust an AI with spending their money or buying an item without seeing a picture or reading reviews. I wonder how much the decline in quality of Amazon's marketplace has affected other parts of the company's business including Alexa. I remember a time when, if I wanted to buy something online, I'd just buy off Amazon without shopping around. They almost always had the best price, their shipp…

It's not just that, it's that it has to get the details right. Even for "order post-its," it's not clear what color you want, maybe you want extra sticky, or jumbo.

Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#162

Post by TylerE »

AlexandrB wrote: post #109
putlake wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've heard, AWS prices for large customers like Netflix are a lot lower than for Alexa or Amazon Retail. Netflix has the option to switch to GCP or Azure; Alexa doesn't so they don't get those discounts.

What does it mean for Alexa to "pay" for AWS though? Is it recorder as revenue somewhere or does it just get accounted for internally?

There are tax laws around this to you can’t cheat.

I remember when I toured a large local forklift company (Brand you’ve probably heard of - big plant) and on the main production floor they had just about every OTHER brand of forklift.

Someone asked and was told they had to pay full retail (including all taxes) on their own units, and they have to buy their competitors products for research… so, two birds one stone…

Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#163

Post by binarysolo »

Maybe I'm an atypical user compared to the privacy-centric HN user, but I use Alexa a bunch, have them liberally scattered throughout my house, and bought into the ecosystem of Alexa-compatible devices (Neato, Hue, Frame TV, etc.) and services (Prime Music, Spotify)

I've def been a little annoyed at it starting to ask me for product reviews and other things these days, but most of it's been low enough friction that I don't bother shutting it down on the app or whatever.

I wish Alexa was more programmable or less clunky for a casual enthusiast though, I set up a buncha things basically the first few years and slowly had it atrophy as other priorities in life took over...

Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#164

Post by TulliusCicero »

ncallaway wrote: post #26
LASR wrote: post #15

Are any voice assistants making any money? The problem with voice assistants at the moment is the same as command line tools. You have to know what specific prompts work and don’t work etc. I often see my parents make simple queries like “turn off the white lights and turn on the night lights” only to get the response that it can only do one thing at a time. There will be a future where this gets more and more sophis…

Even if it were more sophisticated, I don't really see how it makes money. Even if it could absolutely nail that slightly more complicated command, and manage your home automation with natural language processing... that doesn't make money either! I agree completely with your assessment, that they behave more like a verbal CLI than a proper assistant, but solving that well doesn't seem like it offers a great opportun…

I could see it as a replacement for UberEats if it could get to a high level of convenience. E.g.

"Alexa, order two medium cheese pizzas from the closest Domino's for delivery."

"Okay, ordering two medium cheese pizzas from a Domino's 2.7 miles away for delivery as soon as possible, for $25. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Okay, ordering pizzas. It'll take around 40 minutes."

But you'd need a very high level of AI intelligence/integration to get to that level. As it stands you'd probably go back and forth a bunch of times as the AI quizzes you on exactly what you want, when you want it, from which restaurant, etc. And that would just kill the usability, to the point where it's better to just use your phone.

Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#165

Post by fbdab103 »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #59

I think in the future, products like Alexa will be simple products purchased once for a profit (not loss leaders) that do all the processing locally, not service subscriptions. I mean, do you really need an internet connection and "cloud" services to implement an egg timer you can talk to? Maybe they'll have an internet connection to check weather.gov, but that's about all that's really needed.

I want to subscribe to your future. Everyday I see more and more devices insist they require the Internet. Washing machines, TVs, thermostats. Seemingly the market for offline devices is limited. MBAs need that recurring revenue.

Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#166

Post by 29athrowaway »

poxrud wrote: post #106
29athrowaway wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Alexa for everything. - To ask for the weather, weather alerts, relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed - To ask about outdoor air quality, indoor air quality (requires air quality monitors) - As a baby monitor (crying detector routine) - To know when to empty the dehumidifier bucket (humidity > 60% routine) - To know when someone left the AC fan off (high CO2 routine) - To know when to open the window (hi…

What do you use for VOC/PM detection that integrates with Alexa?

Alexa Smart air quality monitor.

Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#167

Post by 29athrowaway »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #108
29athrowaway wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Alexa for everything. - To ask for the weather, weather alerts, relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed - To ask about outdoor air quality, indoor air quality (requires air quality monitors) - As a baby monitor (crying detector routine) - To know when to empty the dehumidifier bucket (humidity > 60% routine) - To know when someone left the AC fan off (high CO2 routine) - To know when to open the window (hi…

so from the perspective of an executive trying to make money off it: utterly useless

I also order stuff as it runs out.

Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#169

Post by hammeiam »

binarysolo wrote: post #163

Maybe I'm an atypical user compared to the privacy-centric HN user, but I use Alexa a bunch, have them liberally scattered throughout my house, and bought into the ecosystem of Alexa-compatible devices (Neato, Hue, Frame TV, etc.) and services (Prime Music, Spotify) I've def been a little annoyed at it starting to ask me for product reviews and other things these days, but most of it's been low enough friction that I…

Your Alexa has started talking to you and asking you for things, unprompted?

Re: Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year

#170

Post by db1234 »

slaw wrote: post #60
somenameforme wrote: post #48

Perhaps a silly question, but can somebody describe how they might lose $10 billion on Alexa in one year? I don't understand the math. That's enough to pay 33,000 employees $330k a year, or some recombination of such. I don't think the real numbers come even remotely close to that. So it presumably has to be hardware costs, but Alexa is software, and they have vertical integration of all servers which presumably woul…

> This year, an employee familiar with the hardware team said, the company is on pace to lose about $10 billion on Alexa and other devices. Creative journalism or creative accounting.

To me this looks like a deliberate leak from Amazon. Why? I don't know. Perhaps a signal to wall street that more layoffs are coming to Alexa division?
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