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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

#191

Post by ghaff »

graton wrote: post #158
francisofascii wrote: post #96

We pay $179 a year for Amazon music. We use Alexa all the time to play music. How is that not a huge revenue success? It sounds like they are not properly factoring that in as a downstream impact.

For $168/year you could get YouTube Premium, which comes with YouTube music and ad-free YouTube (not counting ads inside the videos done by the content creator).

Or as part of an Apple deal that comes with other stuff you may want. The music subscriptions are all pretty much the same unless you have very niche requirements.

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

#192

Post by harmmonica »

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.

agree with this and we're an alexa household, which I don't love, but we tried a homepod and friggin' siri was (still is?) shockingly inept when it specifically came to setting multiple timers, adjusting timer duration, cancelling timers, etc. it feels pretty dumb having Alexa and all the potential snooping just to set timers and for an inferior Spotify-playing experience (sound quality of the ones we have are not good), but... here we are.

that said, considering how much we rely on alexa for timers and spotify, what I really want is a homepod for the sound quality (if apple and Spotify would just start playing nice), privacy (yes, in a world with a lack of privacy I actually believe apple is basically our best bet given the ecosystem choices) and mostly for the potential of apple intelligence, which, if it worked as well as chatgpt today in "conversing" with you I'd be over the moon about.

does anyone else primarily interact w chatgpt via voice? it really does seem incredible how you can start with a superficial question about a topic and then keep digging down. it's replaced a lot of my information-seeking google searches, which I have never used voice with, with a voice app that I would use endlessly if I didn't have to open the chatgpt app and tap on the microphone button (that may seem crazy, but think of all the time you spend away from your phone, or like others are saying, with something in your hands, where you voice is the ui).

p.s. can't leave this comment without saying that, yes, I worry about the privacy implications of all of this stuff daily, but guess I'm dumb enough that I still use all of these privacy-invading devices

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

#193

Post by fantasybuilder »

superfrank wrote: post #138

Years ago, my wife did some contracting work for a team responsible for the voice assistant at one of the major tech companies. Her role required her to work with the directors and VPs and she came home one day to tell me how one of them laid out their grand vision for the product and was talking about how, not only will people use these things to buy every day items, but one day people will be making major purchases…

I think the issue of trust is a part of it, but not the most crippling when it comes to purchases. It's not that I don't trust Alexa is that I have no idea how to communicate what I need. There are thousands of options for any product - so which one should Alexa pick? How can I tell what sliced bread I want it to order without seeing the available options and prices?..

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

#194

Post by snapcaster »

baq wrote: post #162
bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bought an Alexa..... For the kids dorm room...? Wanna share with us your thought process?

Of the precious little Alexa can do reliably announcing that dinner is ready without having to yell is quite useful.

Do you value your family's privacy at all?

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

#195

Post by crorella »

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…

This, plus the fact many of the products sold by Amazon now are fakes and low quality items. I almost never order from Amazon now and doing it blindly via Alexa is not an option.

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

#196

Post by pchristensen »

francisofascii wrote: post #96

We pay $179 a year for Amazon music. We use Alexa all the time to play music. How is that not a huge revenue success? It sounds like they are not properly factoring that in as a downstream impact.

Music rights aren't cheap. Just ask Spotify.

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

#197

Post by fantasybuilder »

tonymet wrote: post #155

if they integrate LLMs and build true conversational capabilities they could charge a premium for therapeutic conversations

I love the idea but the only way I would ever use a product like that is if it's fully local and open source. No company is getting my "therapeutic conversations".

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

#198

Post by Kon-Peki »

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.

> gross cooking hands

I cook a lot and totally get this feeling, but honestly your cooking hands probably aren't gross. And if they are you're probably doing something wrong, in which case some cooking classes will be both very enjoyable and eliminate the problem.

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

#199

Post by fantasybuilder »

ergonaught wrote: post #77

We have several Alexa devices. We use them all the time and for a wide variety of purposes. By any rational, actual customer-connected metric, they are a wild success in this and similar homes. This is an example of Amazon not actually letting the smartest people into the room. We do vast amounts of our shopping via Amazon, but that's through the app and website even when we manage the shopping lists/etc via Alexa. W…

I absolutely agree. They are not positioning Alexa correctly in the market. It's a tremendous opportunity to move towards a smarter integrated home and a personal assistant. Buying even basic things using voice will never make sense.

I use Alexa daily to voice-control devices in my Hubitat. Once there is an easy to set up local voice control option I will remove Alexa. Unless they reposition themselves as something more useful.

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

#200

Post by delecti »

swatcoder wrote: post #100
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 (…

Yeah, this is the more salient detail.

I would consider (something equivalent to) what Amazon envisions if it was products from my local grocery store, at the prices of that specific store. But Amazon? I can't trust they'll be any of: in stock, with the exact same product, at basically the same price.

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