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Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

arstechnica.com

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Re: Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

#41

Post by MyFedora »

alwa wrote: post #9
josefritzishere wrote: post #4

Stop buying this junk. Turn off the service. Only revenue loss will motivate better corporate behavior

That’s what makes this sting: the buyers already did pay a price premium (and subscription) to motivate behavior consistent with their preferences. And even after accepting that premium, the company is just choosing not to deliver on its end anymore. And to be clear, “its end” here is refraining from pushing ads: a twisted state of affairs where the default condition is the company doing the work to force you to see…

A price premium? Are you aware that Amazon sells these at a loss? Amazon wants to kill Alexa because they couldn't find a way to monetize it.

Re: Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

#42

Post by Workaccount2 »

mrweasel wrote: post #28

Is Amazon actively trying to kill of their Echo/Alexa business? Every story about Alexa for the past six months, maybe a little more, have been about Amazon taking steps to dismantling anything with in their business or product line up that could potentially be useful. If they aren't making money, and don't believe that they ever will, then why not simply shutdown the whole thing? Is this some weird way of doing that…

Amazon thought people would say "Hey Alexa, buy more paper towels, a pack of soap, rent breaking bad season one, and tell me about the top rated blender in the store"

Instead people say "Hey Alexa, set a timer for 10:00"

Re: Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

#43

Post by mrweasel »

MyFedora wrote: post #39
mrweasel wrote: post #28

Is Amazon actively trying to kill of their Echo/Alexa business? Every story about Alexa for the past six months, maybe a little more, have been about Amazon taking steps to dismantling anything with in their business or product line up that could potentially be useful. If they aren't making money, and don't believe that they ever will, then why not simply shutdown the whole thing? Is this some weird way of doing that…

There never was a business here to begin with. Amazon wants to kill Alexa because they couldn't find a way to monetize it.

But then why not just shut the whole thing down? Tell customers that the services will be shutdown January 1st. 2026 and yank the remaining device from the store? That's where we're heading anyway.

Re: Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

#44

Post by belval »

This article made me aware of this monstruosity: https://www.wired.com/review/amazon-smart-oven/ honestly this gives such a weird unfocused company vibe.

Regarding the Echo show displaying ads, I would advocate anyone to throw it out. It's mind-numbing to me that you can pay for a product only for it to display unwanted ads.

Re: Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

#46

Post by consteval »

jamifsud wrote: post #16
donatj wrote: post #13

Being able to yell "Alexa, turn my lights off" has been handy. Alexa recently interrupting me with notifications that are just "Hey, some garbage you don't want is on sale" has me thinking about throwing the thing out.

I switched to HomePods for exactly this reason, Alexa was constantly upselling me on features and Amazon products. Threw it out.

The nice (ish) thing about Apple is that since they price everything stupidly high, I have some faith they're making a profit.

I don't think Alexa makes money. I'm pretty sure the hardware is sold at a loss, with the intention it gets you to buy shit through Amazon with it. Which - obviously - no. Nobody is shopping via voice, that was always a stupid idea.

Re: Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

#48

Post by mrweasel »

akmarinov wrote: post #35
danielbln wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need it to turn on/off lights, tell me time/weather, set timers and that's pretty much it. They can shut off everything else for all care. Maybe provide me with a GPT level conversational agent, hell, I take some Llama3.1 with function calling on Amazon Bedrock.

That loses them money and with no way to monetize- they have no incentive to keep it around

Other than the obvious privacy angle, is that why Apple want to do almost everything on device? No services to run, just let people pay the price of actually producing the device and the software and not worry about the running cost?

Re: Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

#49

Post by krunck »

donatj wrote: post #13

Being able to yell "Alexa, turn my lights off" has been handy. Alexa recently interrupting me with notifications that are just "Hey, some garbage you don't want is on sale" has me thinking about throwing the thing out.

There is no reason why your needs require a datacenter backed device.

Re: Amazon is bricking primary feature on $160 Echo device after 1 year

#50

Post by jorvi »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #42
mrweasel wrote: post #28

Is Amazon actively trying to kill of their Echo/Alexa business? Every story about Alexa for the past six months, maybe a little more, have been about Amazon taking steps to dismantling anything with in their business or product line up that could potentially be useful. If they aren't making money, and don't believe that they ever will, then why not simply shutdown the whole thing? Is this some weird way of doing that…

Amazon thought people would say "Hey Alexa, buy more paper towels, a pack of soap, rent breaking bad season one, and tell me about the top rated blender in the store" Instead people say "Hey Alexa, set a timer for 10:00"

The funny thing is, if it wasn't Amazon that Alexa was ordering stuff from, you could bet your ass people would have been using it like that.

But because Amazon sells used diapers, counterfeit items, can have gigantic price swings for some items, and has reviews that are gamed to the gills, no one would ever want to order from there blindly.

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