Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
theguardian.com
Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
1–10 of 127 posts
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#2Be smarter than a smart speaker by never purchasing one. Why put an always on snitch in your home? Such convivence is a trap.
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#3Oh this dystopian future.
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#4Short version: Alexa supports third parties extending it with "Skills" apps which may be commercial. Paid functionality may be enabled via verbal confirmation via an in-app purchase[1]. Paid functionality may be one-time or recurring.
Her sister caught the corresponding email just before the paid subscription would have started. The documentation says developers must mark skills targeted at kids and those aren't eligible to have this flow enabled.
[1] https://developer.amazon.com/es-MX/docs/alexa/paid-skills/ov...
edit to add -- that was all presented without comment. But having a device that can start up a recurring subscription if anyone says "yes" to one prompt exist at all, and having the toggle for the feature on by default and in options is in the "no thanks" column for me.
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#5Be smarter than a smart speaker by never purchasing one. Why put an always on snitch in your home? Such convivence is a trap.
Boggles my mind that anyone buys these things.
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#6I don't think this particular incident is any kind of big deal, though it's funny. It was only a £1.99 a month and there was a 7-day free trial anyway. Amazon say they emailed about it as confirmation. I think the issue it shows is how you can't trust voice control for anything important. It's just a bad interface for buying stuff particularly. If I am buying some dog food, I search dog food, glance over the options, check prices and delivery dates and reviews then plump for one. Thinking of doing the same by voice drains me.
"Alexa, order me the cheapest best reviewed dry dog food that will arrive tomorrow". Could that work? Would I trust that it had worked, if Alexa just said "ok" without me running off to a computer to check the order details and defeating the whole object? More likely it would turn into an exhausting game of twenty questions with the device narrowing my selection iteratively.
(I actually tried that sentence just now. Alexa remained in a stunned silence.)
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#7Be smarter than a smart speaker by never purchasing one. Why put an always on snitch in your home? Such convivence is a trap.
Because the QOL from one is insane for me. While I’m cooking, I can set timers and look up conversions (one big country that produces a lot of internet content, including recipes, uses the most insane units). Everything else is a nice bonus, but those parts are major.
That said, I want to replace Alexa with something fully local, but the supply chain issues are currently a hindrance.
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#8I don't think this particular incident is any kind of big deal, though it's funny. It was only a £1.99 a month and there was a 7-day free trial anyway. Amazon say they emailed about it as confirmation. I think the issue it shows is how you can't trust voice control for anything important. It's just a bad interface for buying stuff particularly. If I am buying some dog food, I search dog food, glance over the options,…
Update.. I tried just "order dog food" and it picked a decent choice based off my order history and then I could have said "buy this". So to be fair (with a device with a screen) it performed quite well.
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#9Be smarter than a smart speaker by never purchasing one. Why put an always on snitch in your home? Such convivence is a trap.
Because the QOL from one is insane for me. While I’m cooking, I can set timers and look up conversions (one big country that produces a lot of internet content, including recipes, uses the most insane units). Everything else is a nice bonus, but those parts are major. That said, I want to replace Alexa with something fully local, but the supply chain issues are currently a hindrance.
The fact you call this mini feature of setting a timer (which is equally available on your phone via voice) "QOL" is fascinating to me
Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?
#10> Thank goodness she didn’t ask Alexa to say the Rosary
The highlight of the article there.