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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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A cooking class won't eliminate the raw meat on your bare hand

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

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My smartphone does not auto play from my kitchen speaker with voice control, no. Sure I could just use a normal speaker but dealing with connecting to it and siri's crap voice control is worse than alexa.

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Either you don't cook much, or you have a much different definition of "gross" than most people.

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

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

This is the inherent problem with Amazon's support of 3rd party vendors through their platform, and the general lack of quality controls. I increasingly use specific companies for purchases, because I can't guarantee that what I order through Amazon will actually be the product I wanted, or be at the quality level I'd expect. It's getting to be absolutely awful.

Yeah I've largely migrated my purchases off of Amazon for exactly this reason.

Checking now, I placed 83 orders last year. I've placed 3 so far this year.

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

#216
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…

I really enjoy this joke,

"Wow, my laptop is a really expensive clipboard today"

"My monitor is a really expensive webcam stand"

"My phone is a really expensive alarm clock"

It's never not funny to me

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

#217

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…

one surprisingly useful thing it did for me involved my phone. I couldn't find my phone and i think i just blurted out "alexa, i can't find my phone" jokingly. it then responded if it should call it. I said yes, and then my phone started ringing and i was able to find it. That was pretty useful actually.

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

#218
post #165

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.

Some people might just not want to take the time to math it out while they've got something time-sensitive on the stove. I feel like your comment doesn't really serve a purpose other than to put other people down. Congrats on your memory and math prowess but not everyone in the world has the same brain as you.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

A cooking class won't eliminate the raw meat on your bare hand

Both of them? At the time where you need a timer?

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

#220

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 (…

This a million times. I swear I will never understand why Amazon's supply, organization, and pricing for household goods is such a disaster. Because their experience for mainstream books is mostly perfectly fine -- there's a single listing for each book, and the price doesn't change much, just some discount from list. It works. But for things like paper towels or Tide or whatever, it's utter chaos. Multiple listings…

It's ridiculous that I have to have a spreadsheet with pricing information and links for household goods just to spot check and make sure I'm getting the actual price per quantity that I want due to the multiple dynamic listings that change every day nightmare.

Don't ask how many times I receive more or less than I thought I would or something came in 10 packages of 3 instead of 1 30x package.

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