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Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

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Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

#91

Post by balls187 »

pwthornton wrote: post #65

I'd pay a monthly/yearly fee to be able to run Alexa's that can function as a smart home voice controller that does not try to sell me stuff.

Not me.

One: I don't want to pay a yearly fee to use a hardware device I paid for. Especially when that price will inevitably increase.

Two: Paying a monthly fee for the privilege of saying "Turn the lights on." in my own flipping home. That is very hard pass.

Three: Amazon already EOL's several smarthome products (CloudCam, Amazon Key come to mind).

I'm glad that Amazon would take a huge L if they decide to abandon their Alexa ecosystem now.

Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

#92

Post by burningChrome »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #63
pjmlp wrote: post #31

All these voice assistants are gimmicks to me, they hardly provide any value, plus never get a proper Portuguese support.

Voice controlled radio + timers is more than worth the cost of an Alexa device. Why does it have to be more than that?

Doesn't your smartphone have both of these already?

Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

#93

Post by bluGill »

wnc3141 wrote: post #72
skellera wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downstream impact is gamed internally at Amazon. People crucified Sears for making teams compete internally but that’s literally what’s happening at Amazon at a larger scale. Teams and orgs regularly push back against helping each other. Will not waste resources to help others. I don’t believe Amazon has a good outlook over 5 years unless they get lucky with random bets. They no longer innovate, they just copy and tr…

I think even if Amazon stagnates, servicing that core business at scale is a once in a generation moat.

Maybe, but Amazon is already from the previous generation and so by your metric another is due. Good luck starting it.

Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

#94

Post by SoftTalker »

orthecreedence wrote: post #67

I still cannot believe Amazon convinced people to install 1984 surveillance in their homes, much less pay for it, for whatever trivial conveniences the stupid thing offers. It's not Amazon's fault but it's just strange to me how sideways our culture is that it's considered normal to let a corporation have unfettered access to your private space and pay them for being there. I get the tradeoff with smartphones...at le…

I feel the same way. I reject all this kind of stuff, as in real life it doesn't work very well and doesn't solve any problems I have. My light switches have never failed. Neither are setting timers and playing music things that vex me. Computers fail all the time, either literally, or by popping up some irrelevancy that gets in the way of what I want to do.

I want dumb devices that I directly control and that do not try to second guess what I mean or suddenly behave differently or have to "restart" because an update got pushed out, or have to deliver an advertisement before they will do what I asked.

I'll never have an Alexa or anything like it. But, I get that some people like gizmos and their perception is different. They are welcome to do whatever they want.

Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

#97

Post by bluSCALE4 »

paxys wrote: post #86

The core issue is that Amazon envisioned Alexa as a product that would help it increase sales. Smart home features were always an afterthought. How convenient would it be if people could shout "Alexa order me Tide Pods" from wherever they were in their home and the order got magically processed? That demo definitely got applause from a boardroom full of execs. The problem is that consumers don't behave like that. Thi…

I don't think any of that is true. If Costco produced such features in their imaginary product, people may use it. Why? Because Costco has proven itself trustworthy of a blind repeat purchase. You could trust the price you're paying is typical and fair. Amazon on the other hand...

Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

#98

Post by jncfhnb »

aiauthoritydev wrote: post #95

Products need to evolve with time. Gmail is not same as 0 years ago even though core functionality is email. Same for Google maps, Same for Amazon Prime etc. But Alexa has not really evolved.

Gmail would be more or less just as successful if it were exactly the same as 10 years ago

Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

#99

Post by 8organicbits »

pwthornton wrote: post #65

I'd pay a monthly/yearly fee to be able to run Alexa's that can function as a smart home voice controller that does not try to sell me stuff.

I find voice AI creepy as it's always listening. If you have to press a button to get it to start listening then you're better off typing your query. Plus I scan and read faster than an AI reads responses. I'd pay more for products that dont support it. (similar story for smart TVs).

Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions

#100

Post by swatcoder »

paxys wrote: post #86

The core issue is that Amazon envisioned Alexa as a product that would help it increase sales. Smart home features were always an afterthought. How convenient would it be if people could shout "Alexa order me Tide Pods" from wherever they were in their home and the order got magically processed? That demo definitely got applause from a boardroom full of execs. The problem is that consumers don't behave like that. Thi…

> I always want to see a page with the product details and price before I click "buy". Reducing the number of clicks is not going to make me change my decision.

This is compounded by the multi-headed monster that large orgs like theirs have no choice but to become. If customers could trust that every day essentials had a relatively stable price and availability pattern like they trust from their local grocery store (rightly or wrongly), blind ordering might be more tenable.

But some other head on the beast wants to keep Amazon shaped like an unmonitored digital marketplace where orders are fulfilled dynamically by bidders and algorithms, so your Tide Pods could be anywhere from $6.99 to $64.99, and you might get anywhere between 10 and 100, and they might arrive tomorrow or next week, and they might come in retail packaging or as a bag of tide-pod-resembling-mystery-objects, etc.

Of course blind ordering won't work when you can't give your customers any assurances (let alone guarantees) about price, quality, volume, etc

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