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Amazon Mulls $5 to $10 monthly price tag for unprofitable Alexa service, AI revamp
(www.reuters.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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Alexa was never supposed to make money by itself. It was supposed to do two things, collect information and lower the barrier to buying things.
They must have either collected enough data to lower the value of collecting any more, or they have realized that people got over the novelty of asking Alexa to order more dog food.
My guess is the latter, because buying anything from Amazon now requires 15 minutes of research to make sure it's actually what you want and not at some ridiculous marked up price. I wouldn't trust Alexa to pick the best result on the first try.
Alexa has a tendency to give you the 'featured' product no matter how precisely and specifically you ask her for something. Even if you don't have to research and know exactly what you want, it's almost always easier to just go find your phone.
The real game changer for Alexa was always having a voice assistant that you can integrate with just about whatever you want that isn't tied to someone's phone. The idea of going into someone's house and just saying 'Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights' or 'Alexa, is it cold outside?' is where the Alexa magic lies, but Amazon never could figure out how to make that profitable on it's own, just doesn't contribute to the business case.
They are so dumb. Every house could use their products, they just need to charge normal prices. Everyone has light switches in every room. Imagine if most new houses came with "Alexa" switches and electric plugs.
They tried to make money on a few hobbyists who could set it up for themselves. They needed to go after the construction market. Charge half of what they were charging and sell a ton to every house in America. It's not an iPhone. It's a basic device to turn on the lights.
Oh boy a bunch of added expense to get the light switches swapped out with ones that don't spy on me.