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Amazon’s Echo Chamber

dcurt.is

21–30 of 94 posts

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#21
post #19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next two sentences are > That market is quickly and brutally dying. The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system, to the point that it is barely possible to break even. I don't think he's claiming that copyright owners can't make money selling copyrighted material. It sounds like he's claiming that the delivery…

And Netflix is not a delivery network?

They don't really want to be anymore, which is why they're spending so much money on original programming.

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#22
post #19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next two sentences are > That market is quickly and brutally dying. The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system, to the point that it is barely possible to break even. I don't think he's claiming that copyright owners can't make money selling copyrighted material. It sounds like he's claiming that the delivery…

And Netflix is not a delivery network?

Is Netflix making money yet or are they taking losses to grow?

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#23
post #7

Scathing and harsh, but probably pretty accurate. > No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore. That market is quickly and brutally dying. The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system, to the point that it is barely possible to break even. This part resonated with me a lot. The media market was always…

I like the post and agree with dcurtis about the abysmal phone. However I like my Fire HDX. It works for what I want to use it for: reading books and watching stuff. It isn't the best tablet, but it is not bad. It's the best for buying books and videos from Amazon. Ecosystem is subpar, but that is ok.

That's basically the problem I have with the Kindle. I love how convenient it is to buy books, and just turning from page to page is easy enough with the physical buttons on my model (or hopefully the little touch zones on the new model), but everything else sucks.

Software updates are rare, the menus are convoluted and obtuse, when the newer models you have to know secret touch zones to use different features. Simple options that used to exist have disappeared and new options of questionable utility have taken their place.

Probably my favorite thing about the Kindle is that it syncs my place with my phone, but the app on iOS is gotten much worse over the years. At this point when reading a book the timeline thing at the bottom and all sorts of weird little blue dots on it that I've never been able to figure out. Sometimes if you tap on one it goes away.

The things just smack of strange decisions. Who thought it would be a good idea to remove the page current buttons for two or three years in a row? And when they brought them back or not real buttons, but hopefully they're good enough.

In the meantime the books are still absolutely riddled with typos, terrible formatting, and if a publisher actually makes an update to a book you're unlikely to find out about it. What little I've heard of the authorship side of things is supposed be pretty dreadful too, were even recent kindles don't support some of the newest formatting things because Amazon hasn't bothered to update them.

It's the best e-book reader on the market, and in many ways it's a piece of crap. It's so clear the decision seem to be made by marketing or something else instead of what the readers want.

And sadly this experience seems to match what I've heard about other Amazon hardware. At best they behave like a mediocre hardware company who doesn't understand software. Even their flagship devices like the original Kindle fire have serious issues, which if you're lucky get fixed in a software update later.

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#24
post #17

"No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore." Is that really true? No one makes money selling music, apps, or books on iTunes? Netflix doesn't make money selling a media consumption service? HBO doesn't make money selling premium content? Those are all examples of media. And they're all capable of making money for their creators and distributors.

The next two sentences are > That market is quickly and brutally dying. The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system, to the point that it is barely possible to break even. I don't think he's claiming that copyright owners can't make money selling copyrighted material. It sounds like he's claiming that the delivery…

Delivery networks are not profitable anymore, but if you control the avenue, you can promote and distribute your own content for almost nothing and you can profit from it.

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#25
post #7

Scathing and harsh, but probably pretty accurate. > No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore. That market is quickly and brutally dying. The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system, to the point that it is barely possible to break even. This part resonated with me a lot. The media market was always…

No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore.

This is a common belief among people in tech. It is also disastrously false. Frozen has sold 1.2 billion dollars worth of tickets. The related IP alone, to say nothing of merchandising, will be sold for decades to come, and bring in additional billions.

You know the DVD, a dead format that can be trivially pirated? Yeah, they sold 3.2 million copies of Frozen. In a day.

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#26
post #7

Scathing and harsh, but probably pretty accurate. > No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore. That market is quickly and brutally dying. The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system, to the point that it is barely possible to break even. This part resonated with me a lot. The media market was always…

Didn't Bezos once say something like "your margin is my opportunity"? There's a certain irony in Amazon not being able to compete in mobile because the market is too efficient.

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#27
post #16
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I titled it that on purpose, to allude to the new product. I hate clickbait. I changed the title anyway.

> I titled it that on purpose Not originally - it was titled Amazon Has No Taste, and was changed to Amazon Echo. Even the current title (Amazon's Echo Chamber) is link-baity IMHO.

Amazon Has No Taste is a pretty good title if you ask me, it's an excellent summary of the problem.

Amazon's Echo Chamber doesn't strike me as that bad, it also seems to describe the problem decently. Amazon is big enough and has enough eyeballs that they can make mediocre products appear to succeed for quite a while. Because of that insulation the products don't improve nearly as fast as they probably should.

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#28
post #25
post #7

Scathing and harsh, but probably pretty accurate. > No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore. That market is quickly and brutally dying. The media market is now so efficient that all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system, to the point that it is barely possible to break even. This part resonated with me a lot. The media market was always…

No one makes money selling media for consumption anymore. This is a common belief among people in tech. It is also disastrously false. Frozen has sold 1.2 billion dollars worth of tickets. The related IP alone, to say nothing of merchandising, will be sold for decades to come, and bring in additional billions. You know the DVD, a dead format that can be trivially pirated? Yeah, they sold 3.2 million copies of Frozen.…

"all profit is completely sucked out of the equation by the time you get to the consumption delivery system"

Is this false though? For all the success of the itunes store I seem to remember it not actually making a lot of profit from content?

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#29
post #11

Echo seems really smart to me - the reason Amazon is in hardware is because they are terrified of 'ok google, order me lighbulbs', or 'hey siri, i need a new pair of socks' becoming the way people shop for things online. Amazon made Echo for 'alexa, order me wheat thins', and all the question answering and music playing is just window dressing.

I really don't think being terrified of competition is a good reason to create something, so I hope that's not why they are doing this. I'm struggling to find a reason why ordering anything via Echo is a good idea. I wouldn't use Siri to order anything, so I'm not sure why I'd want to do this either. I like to research things before I buy them and so do most Amazon users (even if it's a quick glimpse at the overall r…

I am asking for it - I think online shopping is one of those those things, like driving to the store, where you will not realize how annoying it was until you no longer have to do it.

I definitely would like to read reviews and compare prices when buying a big ticket item like a tv or computer, but for repetitive or impulse purchases I would love to be able to make them with the least amount of friction possible.

Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber

#30
post #20

Its curious that selling to one's customer base amounts to an "echo chamber." The Amazon Echo could be really nice. If I could tell it to play an audiobook, I'd be very tempted. It's a truly new product in a world that has too few of those.

The problem with Amazon "selling to their customer base" is that they're doing the old "cheap razors, make money on the blades" shtick, because they're selling all their hardware at or near cost. So the correct measure of success is how many more blades you sell, not how many razors. The author is arguing that the low engagement after purchase due to poor quality undercuts how many blades they sell.
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