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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

#241

Post by bobnamob »

alexathrowawa9 wrote: post #114

Throwaway here but I used to work in Alexa org at Amazon and was amazed by how big the org was (thousands and thousands of people) considering it doesn't seem to be a big revenue generator I remember constantly hearing about projects other teams were working on thinking "why would anyone use that" or "how would that ever make money" Just trying to shoehorn alexa into as many domains as possible It was like empire bui…

> I would joke that the canary tests were the biggest customer for a lot of services

This is true for a surprising number of amzn/aws products

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

#242

Post by conradfr »

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…

But a phone does the same thing.

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

#243

Post by idontwantthis »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #198
philodelta wrote: post #152

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 thread about Alexa is a good place to criticize a stranger’s cooking technique?

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

#244

Post by pjc50 »

textlapse wrote: post #225

If Amazon (and Google and Apple) couldn’t figure out how to monetize a voice/chat ‘app’ after a decade of plowing money into it, how does the whole LLM market come to fruition? Genuinely curious as I see a similar trend: there is definite consumer interest, but just like ‘kitchen timers on Alexa’ what if the LLMs main use case is simply to generate funny memes and the most basic RAG? How does this manifest into a tri…

> how does the whole LLM market come to fruition?

It replaces all the David Graeber "bullshit jobs". As well as about 90% of the education system.

It's not replacing them with something better, but it is cheaper.

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

#245

Post by conradfr »

textlapse wrote: post #225

If Amazon (and Google and Apple) couldn’t figure out how to monetize a voice/chat ‘app’ after a decade of plowing money into it, how does the whole LLM market come to fruition? Genuinely curious as I see a similar trend: there is definite consumer interest, but just like ‘kitchen timers on Alexa’ what if the LLMs main use case is simply to generate funny memes and the most basic RAG? How does this manifest into a tri…

They are useful for customer service.

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

#246

Post by coliveira »

kyllo wrote: post #207
ashconnor wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prices for items in my Amazon cart change multiple times per day. Until they figure out price stability for staple goods then nobody will use this. Hell I don't even use Subscribe and Save for the same reason.

This. I bought toothpaste on Amazon, used it up, and the next time I went to buy the exact same toothpaste, the price had doubled.

Yes, they have a dark pattern where people buy a product and give good reviews, so suddenly they increase the price to benefit from that.

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

#248

Post by meroes »

swozey wrote: post #240
AlexandrB wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Costco is like the opposite of the Amazon experience. Costco will only carry a few brands of any given item, but they're all generally pretty good with nothing drop-shipped from a random AliExpress vendor. Their house brand - Kirkland - is pretty good as well. It's a curated set of products with a relatively small number of SKUs vs. Amazon's flea-market-like experience.

Costco really needs to get new products in or I don't think it will do well with genz and younger millennials. I hadn't been to a Costco since I was a kid so I had completely forgotten that the only stock (maybe) a few versions of specific items. I went a year or two ago thinking I'd come home with months worth of groceries and I was shocked that it STILL looked like the inside of a 1990s fridge and cabinet with such…

What’s healthier than being able to buy massive amounts of high quality fish and beef and decent quality vegetables and fruit, with zero extra ingredients? Same for legumes, farro, brown rice, etc. They have tons of zero sugar drinks as well.

I can’t eat that healthy via other grocery stores because it’s too expensive typically.

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

#249

Post by spaceman_2020 »

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…

I got an Alexa as a gift and never opened it

But now its finding a ton of use as a Cocomelon device for my toddler

I’m dreading the day she learns to say “Alexa, play Cocomelon”. It’s over for me the.

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

#250

Post by mschuster91 »

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.

Everyone who routinely tries to cook American or British recipes, for example. It's all "tablespoons", "cups", "ounces", "fluid ounces" (whoever thought about naming that one deserves a special place in hell...) and whatnot.

And since that stuff isn't metric, orders-of-magnitude conversions (e.g. scaling a recipe up/down) become needlessly more complex as well.

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