101–110 of 195 posts
These days, the general rule is to avoid buying anything 'smart'. They are all filled with advertisements and data-sharing practices and are designed to target you through their user interface and applications. They bombard you with offers for their other products and deals.
Matrix got it a bit wrong; the machines aren't interested in our body heat, they're going to put us in the goo pods and force use to watch adverts 24/7
These days, the general rule is to avoid buying anything 'smart'. They are all filled with advertisements and data-sharing practices and are designed to target you through their user interface and applications. They bombard you with offers for their other products and deals.
Amazon sucks. They are one of the greediest companies there is. What they do with online shopping, logistics, AWS is incredible. They are in a different league and could generate more revenue than any company could ever need by just doing those things well. But that’s not enough. They have to stuff ads into everything and find every possible way to piss off customers all in the name of another buck.
Having said that, I finally tossed my Alexa devices.
I recently bought a Kindle/Fire device pre-owned, to save money. But seeing full-screen shitty consumer products ads on the 'covers of my books', sitting around my home was so depressing, I paid the extra $10-$15, to retroactively turn it into an ad-free device.[1] Though, even with Special Offers disabled, it still puts oversized icons for marketing promotions, bursting out of the search bar at the top of the home s…
I worked on Prime during the Prime Video launch. All of the marketing was around it being ad free and a new benefit of the Prime membership. Not too long later they started playing pre roll ads for Amazon Video offerings (maybe Amazon Studios, I don’t remember). I brought it up in a meeting and the business folks said it was OK because it wasn’t in the middle of the selected content. I’m pushed back, but it went nowh…
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Ironically advertising displays a pretty good.
I've read something like 5 or 6 HN threads about a dumb TV, and without fail _this_ is always one of the replies. Another benefit — advertising displays are also designed to be always-on and last much longer than consumer devices. The other side of the coin? Because of the first two points, they are also rather cost-prohibitive. Nevertheless, anyone know where I can pick up a good one?
We're way overdue to abolish the DMCA, in particular the "anti-circumvention" felonies. It shouldn't be a crime for me to customize the product I purchased. Or to sell people a kit to do the customization themselves.
Same with any Amazon device. I wish there was a way to recycle Alexa so it’s not just a e-garbage… after all my personal data and insights were mined
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I'm always amazed at how little people will care about the customer experience for a shot at a 20k raise.
In all fairness to the MBAs, the "Customer Obsession" commandment could be interpreted multiple ways. Such a metrics-driven company will surely know something about how incentives drive outcomes.
Not sure they really care about many metrics these days.