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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

#181

Post by throwway120385 »

bagels wrote: post #169
spike021 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once heard about a feature dogfooding invite that was sent out specifically for people with babies because they wanted to use Alexa always-listening to activate when a baby was crying and automatically order diapers or something ridiculous like that.

Doesn't even make sense. Babies cry all the time for a multitude of reasons, none of which are informed by how many diapers are in the house.

Yeah and given how often we get it wrong as parents, imagine the absolute dumpster fire it would be to have a voice assistant get it 10x as wrong.

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

#182

Post by throwway120385 »

philodelta wrote: post #152
S0y wrote: post #113

>Customers actually used Echo mostly for free apps such as setting alarms and checking the weather. “We worried we’ve hired 10,000 people and we’ve built a smart timer,” said a former senior employee. That's actually really funny to read. Just last night I was watching my brother cook and he asked Alexa to set a timer (It's pretty much the only thing he uses it for...) I jokingly said "You know, that's a really expen…

don't get me wrong, it is silly, but also being able to set a timer without touching anything with your gross cooking hands is unironically a wonderful feature.

I feel like there's an unmet market opportunity here for a physical timer that is voice activated without a connection to the internet.

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

#183

Post by fantasybuilder »

chaostheory wrote: post #148
swatcoder wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 (…

Blind ordering only made sense when Amazon customer service was top notch. That ended when Amazon started having profitable quarters and started Day Two. Now I have to be paranoid about checking product details like if there are 3rd party sellers using FBA which potentially signals fakes. There’s no longer blind trust in Amazon for a lot of customers. I can’t just mindlessly buy stuff with the hope that Amazon custom…

I can't come up with a single item that I would blind order. At most, I could ask Alexa to add an item to a shopping list and then verify the list and place the order myself.

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

#186

Post by ghaff »

hibikir wrote: post #160
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'd be happy ordering with a voice assistant if it's at least as good as I am at deciding good alternatives. Imagine I want to, say, purchase garbage bags, because I am out. It's not exactly a complicated product, and yet I might care about whether it has any smell reduction agents, whether the bag is tough enough, the size, and possible alternatives that are either a bit better, or quite a bit cheaper. Either the ag…

On the other hand, I have--for better or worse--default brands for most of that stuff and I go to a Walmart every six months and load up my cart.

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

#187

Post by JamesSwift »

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…

> 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.

I disagree. The issue here is they had a really great use-case and utterly failed to deliver to the end user. No one is requesting their smart assistants to order anything because there is absolutely no support on the platforms + absolutely no user trust of how that is going to go.

If all they ever did was niche their assistant down to being a smart shopping list, it would have been a great product, and likely would have driven sales. Instead they failed at even the thing they would have been had an advantage on (selling things to customers who are buying from them directly). Google and apple would have been operating through a black box of "privacy preserving apis" to do the same with their own integrations.

Then they proceeded to suck at the stuff all the other assistants also suck at.

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

#188

Post by mdavidn »

S0y wrote: post #113

>Customers actually used Echo mostly for free apps such as setting alarms and checking the weather. “We worried we’ve hired 10,000 people and we’ve built a smart timer,” said a former senior employee. That's actually really funny to read. Just last night I was watching my brother cook and he asked Alexa to set a timer (It's pretty much the only thing he uses it for...) I jokingly said "You know, that's a really expen…

This is my primary use case for Siri too. I use my watch or a HomePod to start named timers in parallel. Voice is also great for adding items to a grocery list, one shared by the entire family in Apple's Reminders app. e.g. When I notice the olive oil is running low, I can make note without washing my hands.

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

#189

Post by snapcaster »

emj wrote: post #165
sethhochberg wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like my Apple Watch for other reasons, but do have to admit that raising it to my face to set a timer or do a quick unit conversion while cooking is by far the most common "active" way I use it. I also use voice control a lot for music when I'm wearing gloves while working with greasy bicycle parts or when gardening. An entire product segment for when your hands are dirty...

How does one need unit conversion while cooking? Sometimes I need how many grams is 1 dl of flour/oats (60g/35g) but I memorized that the second time, maybe if you are doing larger portions.

You answered your own question in the comment? If you require two instances to memorize it that means you needed unit conversion twice in cooking
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