Comment by JesseMReeves | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JesseMReeves | Hacker News Reader

My two Echo Dots 3 had an aura of technical immaturity from day one, but I always viewed them as inexpensive minimalist audio players with some extra functions. They were on sale for like 20€ when I was looking for a simple Bluetooth speaker and I am happy I gave them a try.

* Spotify across the apartment due to the seamlessness of Spotify Connect. No complaints about sync or sound quality, works beautifully.

* Audiobooks or radio while unable to control smartphone (bathtub, exercise).

* Quick access to radio stations, news shows (the ones it understands at least :) ).

* Simple automatic routines like a brown noise playlist during sleep or wake up music, or turning the lights off at night.

* Elderly people in my family who don’t understand tech love theirs to request favorite music via Spotify, set kitchen timers, play digital radio, get a morning greeting. It’s an extended kitchen radio for them and in heavy use.

Would not call this a failed product, perhaps they should focus on core functionality, and improve the app (that I fortunately rarely use).

>Would not call this a failed product,

The "colossal failure" in all the recent headlines means "colossal [financial Return-On-Investment] failure" because customers are not shopping with Alexa voice commands.

A lot of consumers do like Alexa and millions have bought them because conveniences like turning on the lights and playing music are desirable -- but those "smart home" type of uses are not increasing revenue for Amazon.

Amazon was betting on more "Alexa, buy AA batteries" (i.e. spend money) instead of just "Alexa, turn on the light". With more sales enabled by Alexa, it would have justified the billions spent on developing the voice recognition infrastructure. In that monetization sense, it's a "colossal failure".

Yeah this is it. I'm not sure how they actually attribute value and if "Alexa, buy batteries" counts to their P&L or the e-commerce side. Either way, I'd assume the same as you that they never intended to turn a profit on device sales but rather as a loss leader for ecomm and it's probably fallen short.

The listening capabilities are probably the most valuable and my grapevine says they're pivoting to buy up audio content (ie Wondery).

Amazon isn’t good enough for buying things on Alexa to seem reasonable. Many users barely trust the web interface to show legitimate products — how is voice control supposed to make any sense?

I would believe that Whole Foods could pull this off. Or maybe Target, or more generally any store that competently curates their inventory. That’s not Amazon.

Whole foods is owned by Amazon :)

It's an interesting idea.

> Alexa, buy AA batteries

This lets them shill for whatever gives them the best margin directly, without having to present the user multiple products.

I guess it turns out that people tend to want a bit more control than that. Especially considering that when I tell an SO or friend to buy something I can be confident they'll act in my interest, while I can be fairly confident that Amazon will act in Amazon's interests when told to buy me something.

It’s even worse than that, as actual chosen products may well be counterfeit.

How do you make counterfeit batteries? Are they made of wood or something?

The failure is not in the product, it’s an excellent product.

Their problem is their high expectations to make it a big business. Same way Google kills good products willy-nilly because of unrealistic expectations or inability to spin it off into a self-sustainable project that builds good will with the parent brand.

Whenever Alexa tries to get me to add things to my cart or search products I roll my eyes (it’s never intrusive or annoying, they know better) so I can see why it might not tie in well with their primary business or any added revenue streams.

But they can make money selling the devices or on the App Store - they totally suck at promoting apps and educating users on new usecases. Especially if their AI isn’t going to improve like it hasn’t in the 5 years I’ve used it (if they are investing in the AI side heavily I haven’t seen the ROI).

I'd describe it rather as a failed platform, and I point the finger directly at the awful integration experience for developers and users alike. Alexa's skills ecosystem is painful to engage, being bureaucratic, riddled with misbehaviours, janky UX, and breaking API/data changes - all deficiencies whose consequences are pushed back on the consumer and integrator to handle.

The fact my US-made Rainbow Echo Dot stopped working entirely when moved overseas is a testament to the Alexa service team's pernicious gatekeeper mentality. Don't even get me started on the baffling inconsistencies in behaviour exhibited by Alexa when embedded e.g. trying to control my Sonos kit.

I am especially dissatisfied having been the recipient of a pre-production first-generation Echo courtesy of a visiting BDM whilst managing an AWS team in Melbourne. Super excited at the time, super disappointed now.

Perhaps I should've paid more heed to a key early warning of a restricted and rather parochial outlook: in the first year or so of operation it was impossible to register an Echo with a service address outside of the USA, and I could only set an overseas timezone by writing my own configuration front-end. Even for a MVP, in hindsight, that was a red flag.

That quote in the article, "Alexa is a colossal failure of imagination", sums up my feeling (I am not the former employee quoted).

In this time of too much complexity in apps and user-interfaces it is great that Alexa allows you to accomplish some simple things simply: Alexa play some jazz. Alexa set alarm in 10 minutes.

Those are the two simple things Alexa is good at. Then I also pay for Amazon Music. I don't know if the Amazon profits counts in profit from Amazon Music but without Alexa I would not be be paying for Amazon Music .

> Alexa's skills ecosystem is painful to engage

Agreed, I bashed the AI R&D but really I should be bashing the UX/dev environment. Adding new workflows and finding new apps should be 10x easier. Instead of asking me to add things to a cart they should recommend new ways to use the product.

Amazon has totally undersold the capabilities of their devices to users.

Idk if google is any better. I use Amazon because I love the firestick and I’m a big Audible user.

>it’s an excellent product.

Indeed it is. What Alexa can do today was science fiction 20 years ago. I can say "Alexa, order Earl Grey tea" and a package of Earl Grey tea will show up on my front door step tommorow. Yeah, its slower than a Star Trek replicator but essentially the same thing.

I personally love it but I’m a nerd who is supposed to like it.

What sold me was hearing about my 9yr old niece asking Alexa random questions at 1am because she couldn’t sleep and then asking for rain sounds. And how everyone in the family knows she’s the weather expert because she asks Alexa the weather every morning.

A product that is impossible to monetize is a failed product, especially when it’s losing money at the speed Alexa is with no way revenue in sight.

The article claims lots of Alexa hardware are loss leaders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader) that didn’t lead to sufficient sales to cancel those losses.

That makes them failed products from a business viewpoint.

Of course, they would become successful from a business viewpoint if they could sell enough of them at (cost + reasonable margin), but the article doesn’t discuss whether that would be possible.

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