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
#2I'm never paying for Alexa.
They get latinum enough from datamining and privacy intrusions.
As soon as they put adverts on, or charge for the smart timer/lightswitch functionality, I'm out.
There are OSS projects and I have RasPi devices sitting around. Burn an SD, plug a mic in, off we go.
Alexa found its way into homes because it was free and does what people want. Don't screw that up, add value. Make people want to give you money. Don't tighten your grip or star systems will slip through your fingers.
What do I know though, I'm only a guy who has one or more of these things in every room of my house. SMH.
Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
#3Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
#4I'm never paying for Alexa. They get latinum enough from datamining and privacy intrusions. As soon as they put adverts on, or charge for the smart timer/lightswitch functionality, I'm out. There are OSS projects and I have RasPi devices sitting around. Burn an SD, plug a mic in, off we go. Alexa found its way into homes because it was free and does what people want. Don't screw that up, add value. Make people want t…
I still believe that device manufacturers should be forced to reveal any keys / similar to load 3rd party firmware onto devices like this, if/when the devices go out of support or deviate in pricing from when sold (viz: Ring Doorbells adding subscriptions).
Sure, the vendor lock does allow them to sell the device at a lower cost, but you pay for it later.
Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
#5> More than half of customers who buy smart-camera doorbells from Ring, another profitable Amazon device that the company bought in 2018, purchase security subscriptions.
Security... Subscriptions?
Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
#6I'm never paying for Alexa. They get latinum enough from datamining and privacy intrusions. As soon as they put adverts on, or charge for the smart timer/lightswitch functionality, I'm out. There are OSS projects and I have RasPi devices sitting around. Burn an SD, plug a mic in, off we go. Alexa found its way into homes because it was free and does what people want. Don't screw that up, add value. Make people want t…
I would pay for a Jarvis style holographic AI, even if not fully AGI.
Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
#7> More than half of customers who buy smart-camera doorbells from Ring, another profitable Amazon device that the company bought in 2018, purchase security subscriptions. Security... Subscriptions?
Yes, most consumer home security products have a security subscription attached because they require monitoring (and many jurisdictions require monitoring for alarm permits to help reduce false alarms). For Ring, that also means the features listed on their product page (cloud video access and history, etc).
Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
#8> More than half of customers who buy smart-camera doorbells from Ring, another profitable Amazon device that the company bought in 2018, purchase security subscriptions. Security... Subscriptions?
Probably paying for the ability to save video recordings in the cloud, as opposed to paying them monthly to ensure they dont send goons to break into your house.
Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
#9This is the cost of building a proprietary distribution network. Now they need to monetize it.
Re: Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
#10> More than half of customers who buy smart-camera doorbells from Ring, another profitable Amazon device that the company bought in 2018, purchase security subscriptions. Security... Subscriptions?
Cloud storage. Downside is that only clips with detections are uploaded (plus a capture every n seconds).
Alternative is something like ubiquiti that stores locally, so you get 24/7 recordings but it can be stolen or destroyed.