The article and the thread miss the point. Echo is a consumer / market research device. It gets an always-on sensor into some small percentage of American households. This could be used to collect data on in-home behavior in unprecedented ways. The seven microphones could probably be used to echo-locate walls, movement, and furniture positioning. The rest is up to the "always learning, in the cloud" part.
Amazon’s Echo Chamber
91–94 of 94 posts
Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber
#92Great read and I agree with the majority of it. This stood out though: >Amazon’s retail strategy of being allergic to profit does not translate well into hardware manufacturing. Don't most gaming consoles sell at a loss? The pickup for the console maker is on the publishing rights & distribution channels and the fact they take a gamble that the hardware will get cheaper over the course of that hardware generation. I…
>Don't most gaming consoles sell at a loss
Initially, yes. Nintendo has traditionally turned a profit on most of their consoles (I'm not sure about the new one), but for the last several generations Microsoft and Sony have been losing money on each console purchase - at least initially. Later during the lifespan of the console the component cost has usually dropped enough that they start to turn a profit
Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of people spend far more than that on fairly frivolous things.
How does the Echo even rise to the standard of frivolity? A far better word for it is "superfluous."
Still, I have far more than $200 worth of electronics I have no immediate use for lying around.
Re: Amazon’s Echo Chamber
#94Great read and I agree with the majority of it. This stood out though: >Amazon’s retail strategy of being allergic to profit does not translate well into hardware manufacturing. Don't most gaming consoles sell at a loss? The pickup for the console maker is on the publishing rights & distribution channels and the fact they take a gamble that the hardware will get cheaper over the course of that hardware generation. I…
>Don't most gaming consoles sell at a loss Initially, yes. Nintendo has traditionally turned a profit on most of their consoles (I'm not sure about the new one), but for the last several generations Microsoft and Sony have been losing money on each console purchase - at least initially. Later during the lifespan of the console the component cost has usually dropped enough that they start to turn a profit
Most console launches are supply-constrained and you can't buy one for months, so why do they charge the normal $400 price at launch when people can just buy them and resell them on Craigslist or eBay for hundreds more? If they launch at a higher price they can just ride the demand curve downhill over time by reducing the price and profit from the start.