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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

#341

Post by cushychicken »

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.

Being able to have multiple, named timers that you can set hands free is my favorite feature of Alexa! I’m convinced that better timing for all of my recipe steps has made me a better cook and helped me make better food for the last few years.

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

#342

Post by juxtaposicion »

jaggederest wrote: post #327
juxtaposicion wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're building that spreadsheet as a product. I'd love to show you. I'd message you a private link to a prototype but you have no contact info on your profile. If you are interested, can you email or DM me using my profile info?

You also don't have an email on your profile, for what it's worth. I don't use Twitter. I'd be interested in something like this as well.

Oh, thanks! I added my email to my profile. Look forward to replying to your note!

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

#343

Post by tomn »

mschuster91 wrote: post #250
emj wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> American or British recipes

American or old British recipes; ours are all metric now.

The exception is perhaps teaspoons/tablespoons, but those are trivial metric values (5ml and 15ml), so easy enough to scale and convert if you don't have the right measuring spoon handy.

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

#344

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

tgma wrote: post #288
mschuster91 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote for politicians that campaign on consumer protection legislation. Here in Europe, it's been mandatory to show a price related to a reasonable common base point (e.g. liter, kilogram, piece, usage-unit for laundry detergent) adjacent to the actual product's price for many years now. You can go and use 1/10/100 grams/milliliters though for small scale packages where that is reasonably common (e.g. spices), and tha…

Nah. Just choose to buy the way you wish to. Vote with your money and don’t artificially restrict where there’s zero issues. Everything works out in the end. I’d much rather transact in the US than Europe. The entire retail customer experience and return policy is unmatched. The last thing I want is for some government regulation to make it suck like Europe.

This is fun.

The person you’ve replied to has stated a concrete (what they perceive to be) benefit of consumer protection regulation. One that doesn’t seem to limit choice at all, but rather improves visibility.

I’m also inserting my own personal experience here. The country I live in, which isn’t in Europe, has similar regulation in place.

In response you’re throwing around some vague notion of “freedom” and vague implication of a “better experience” without really explaining how mandatory unit pricing is a bad thing for you as a consumer.

Has John Gruber got you all upset about the EU?

I’m currently booking a trip to the US and the consumer experience is absolutely terrible. Tax-exclusive “totals”? Resort fees? Give me a break.

It sounds like the US consumer experience is more aligned to your obvious libertarian ideology, and that’s the end of it.

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

#345

Post by babypuncher »

I unplugged my Echo years ago. I was getting 0 value out of it. Talking to your computer is an amusing novelty, for a while. But at the end of the day I prefer forms and buttons. I can open the Wikipedia app on my phone and type "Llama" just as fast as I can say "Hey Siri", wait for the beep, "tell me about Llamas", all without disrupting anyone else around me. Plus, I get the full Wikipedia article and not just a summary.

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

#346

Post by Jaauthor »

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 mean, yeah - but take a step back from there. Why is this technology only for commerce? Why is technology only useful if it can be economically exploited? That's a deeper issue and not one you can get a ChatGPT-generated answer to. Culturally, we're hostage to psychopath companies and the investors that love them. Nobody in a hedge fund somewhere is going "hey folks, we should add a 'this makes people's lives better' quadrant to our analyst sheets?"

Maybe they are and we need time to see the pivot in market forces. I just want to take this moment to go on record that only seeing technology as a profit-making machine defeats the purposes of human progress. Let this be a lesson to the rest of you trying to be the next Amazon - it's not working for them. They're losing billions on Alexa and it's all their fault. You aren't bigger, faster, meaner, or better than Amazon. The only thing you can do - the only thing you must do - is focus on your customers as human beings, not just as cash registers.

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

#347

Post by mattmaroon »

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…

Or, and I know this is a radical idea, but I think it could work, sell the hardware for more than it costs to make.

I’m pretty happy with having a speaker in one of my room that can play whatever I want, all at the same time, and some basic assistant functionality. If they cost twice as much, I would still buy them.

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

#348

Post by alexa_throwaway »

Throwaway here.

I'm the CEO of a fast-growing AI startup. Alex asked to meet with us about a year ago (when we were about 1/10th the size), and after asking us to prepare lots of materials, they indicated they wanted to buy us or invest in us. People warned us not to talk to them because they have a reputation for gathering technical detail, and then trying to copy it rather than striking a deal. Our software could have radically accelerated and improved the Alexa experience basically overnight.

At one point in the meeting, the head of Alexa's M&A/investment team said "tell us how much you think you're worth." I threw out a number, and he laughed and left the room.

Today we're valued at more than that number and Alexa's core experience hasn't changed in the past year. They haven't been able to copy us. The Alexa leadership team has some hubris IMO.

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

#349

Post by dghlsakjg »

rainbowzootsuit wrote: post #257
39896880 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Kirkland house brand is often backed by one of the name brands they sell. They have quality metrics for Kirkland and they check the products regularly. If the quality dips, they swap out the provider.

This used to be the Sears Kenmore & Craftsman model where appliances were really Whirlpool, or Maytag, Carrier{1}. Hand tools variously came from many OEMs like SK, Plumb, Knipex, and Williams{2}. I suppose they still do, now at Lowes, but the OEM is Chinese. {1} https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/How_to_identify_who_made_your_Ke... {2} https://forum.toolsinaction.com/topic/2118-craftsman-date-co...

The big thing with Sears Craftsman (formerly), and Costco (currently) is that the company will back the product.

If I want to return a product to Costco, I have really strong confidence that they will take it back.

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

#350

Post by asdasdsddd »

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've interviewed many people on Alexa before. From what I gather, its just a giant switch statement, and each individual "path" takes a bunch of effort to support and there are thousands of paths for music, ordering, commands, etc. It's peak AI == if statement architecture.
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