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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

#801

Post by WalterBright »

tsimionescu wrote: post #614
WalterBright wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are not set by supply & demand. > they can take a hit to their margin instead Not for long. Low margin businesses tend to go out of business. And if you can earn 5% buying bonds, why run a business that has an ROI of 4%?

The point is that supply and demand works on the final price, not on "price before tax". Especially when taxes are proportional, so if you offer a lower price than your competitor, you also pay less of it to the state in taxes. So the tax level is irrelevant to the value of the market price, if you believe in supply & demand as the price setting mechanism. Showing price without tax is then obviously a scam to try to…

> supply and demand works on the final price, not on "price before tax"

That's correct.

> So the tax level is irrelevant to the value of the market price, if you believe in supply & demand as the price setting mechanism.

Taxes raise the price, which reduces demand. If the prices don't rise, then the margins decrease, which reduces the incentive for the business owners to continue.

> doesn't make you a low margin business

It makes you a lower margin business. It reduces the margins on all the businesses, and the marginal (!) ones are no longer viable, and a new set of businesses become at the edge.

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

#802

Post by bentt »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #742
bentt wrote: post #728

My kids have grown up with Alexa devices. They use them as speakers, to listen to Audible, and as ways to communicate with us. I've been under the belief that the devices do not spy on us, based on a few test articles I read. If I ever heard that that was not the case I'd jettison them all from the house.

You're very trusting. I won't let alexa in my home, let alone near my kids. How do you trust something that you can't know what is being done (ie recorded for later, later use - see the github nodelete stories) with it?

I'm not that trusting. I just think that if it came out that Alexa devices were recording outside of their wake word then it would do tremendous damage to the brand and they'd not want to risk it. I feel like the incentives are aligned in this case.

I don't consider data collection and targeting from data collected during the wake word to be spying.

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

#803

Post by throwway120385 »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #227
throwway120385 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there's an unmet market opportunity here for a physical timer that is voice activated without a connection to the internet.

Make it a microwave feature (I use the convenient timer on the microwave far more frequently than any other) and I could see it really taking off.

I'd hate to have it on another appliance because appliance manufacturers would love to have another avenue to get me to use their cloud-connected products.

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

#804

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #756
emj wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand how a voice assistant help with this, it has never worked for me. Seems like pretty hard things to do on the fly with recipes. Weight to volume conversions are rare here but sure I do those on the fly so I guess it makes sense, do you really do you guys really do it that often? If you do extensive conversions of recipes you will need to get the ratios correct as well it is just not something I see…

> I do not understand how a voice assistant help with this, it has never worked for me. What do you mean it has never worked? What do you ask your assistant, and what does it respond? > Seems like pretty hard things to do on the fly with recipes. What's hard? I don't understand. If you need a quantity in unit x, but you only have a measuring cup or spoon in unit y, then you ask for the conversion and then you measure…

[deleted]

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

#805

Post by tsimionescu »

WalterBright wrote: post #801
tsimionescu wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that supply and demand works on the final price, not on "price before tax". Especially when taxes are proportional, so if you offer a lower price than your competitor, you also pay less of it to the state in taxes. So the tax level is irrelevant to the value of the market price, if you believe in supply & demand as the price setting mechanism. Showing price without tax is then obviously a scam to try to…

> supply and demand works on the final price, not on "price before tax" That's correct. > So the tax level is irrelevant to the value of the market price, if you believe in supply & demand as the price setting mechanism. Taxes raise the price, which reduces demand. If the prices don't rise, then the margins decrease, which reduces the incentive for the business owners to continue. > doesn't make you a low margin busi…

Agreed on all these points. But none of this means that the price before tax is a meaningful number that people need to be aware of or care about.

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

#806

Post by [deleted] »

kruador wrote: post #660
pmontra wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember that around year 2000 a coworker from England told me that petrol pumps changed the prices from pounds per gallon to pounds per liter when the cost crossed the one pound mark. There is some malice in that too. Something like that could be the origin of using different units in those USA shops, not to cross some psychological threshold. It's been a long time since I went to the UK so I can't say if petrol i…

The UK switched from selling petrol in gallons to litres in the 1980s. I think I just about recall petrol prices suddenly changing dramatically when I was fairly young - I used to help my Dad keep records of how much fuel we'd bought at what price. I'd write down the figures in the book while he went to pay (it was always self-service) so I must have been old enough to be left alone for 5 minutes! This Energy Institu…

[deleted]

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

#807

Post by lotsoweiners »

emj wrote: post #627
chankstein38 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wanted concrete examples, I see I could have been clearer on that point but I did not intend malice or to brag. I memorize because of diabetes. You need to know how much sugar you eat so you do volume -> weight * carbs/weight * portion size to calculate how much insulin you are supposed to give for a meal. That is not because of cooking and having tried doing that with voice assistant several times I know it is har…

I probably ask Alexa how many oz in cup or how many cups/oz in a gallon once a month but have yet to commit it to memory. I have no need to memorize this stuff when I have the internet available.

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

#808

Post by rconti »

rmccue wrote: post #630
rconti wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Sonos Era 100s have the alexa integration and have my spotify account linked to them. You just gave me an idea! ... except, my Sonos Roam responded, and started playing. Not my stereo pair of era 100s on my desk. Let alone all the speakers in my house. tried again. "I didn't find anything called "office speakers" in your music library". To be fair, she suggested setting up multi-room in the alexa app, which I supp…

Sonos Voice Control is better for any multi-room control, and it seems to work near flawlessly - probably because of the small domain it operates in.

Thanks for the tip, installing now. Combination of too many toys and being too much of a luddite means I never played with it. Or knew it existed.

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

#809

Post by lionkor »

joenot443 wrote: post #706
lionkor wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its because you clicked on an unrelated google result about string views. After you have taken any kind of C++ course, like learncpp.com, you dont have to look this stuff up anymore either. So if LLMs are worth 200$/month to you, I would be very interested to see what actually learning the tools you use would be worth.

Do you take a course for every programming language you encounter? I needed to edit a Ruby script the other day for a client, though I'm not at all a Ruby developer. ChatGPT was super helpful. If I'm understanding correctly, your model here would instead be to enroll in a Ruby course, right? I think we must value our time very differently :)

> Do you take a course for every programming language you encounter?

Yeah often

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

#810

Post by Izkata »

ghaff wrote: post #787
sholladay wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who you calling a shmuck? /s I have most household items on subscription. It saves a ton of time and costs about the same, maybe a little less for some items. And most importantly, it means I never forget something and then have to make another trip.

For me, in spite of living in an ex-urban location, there's a Walmart a 10 minute drive away. But I can absolutely see (and know people) for whom picking up a big package of paper towels in Brooklyn is sort of a pain.

Yep, I'm in a city and don't own a car. I walk to the grocery store and bulky items like that are a pain, so I get them from Amazon.
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