is there anything wrong with that? I kind of thought that is one of the main reasons for the existence of companies, that is, to increase sales, and hopefully, profits.
Yes. They are losing billions on the deal and consumers didn't have their expectations met.
> is one of the main reasons for the existence of companies, that is, to increase sales, and hopefully, profits
You're describing the main reason for owning one. This has nothing to do with why we collectively allow them to exist.
>Yes. They are losing billions on the deal
biz 101: losses in business commonly happen anytime. losses are not wrong or right. they just happen, for various reasons. it is called an occupational hazard. if getting profits all the time was guaranteed, every tom, dick and harry would be running a business.
so companies know about the possibility of losses before they start up.
>and consumers didn't have their expectations met.
naive. companies don't do businesses for that reason. that is kind of a side effect, although a desirable one for companies, because it makes customers continue as customers. companies do business to make money (i.e. profits, not even just sales), plain and simple.
whether we like that or not, and whether their behaviour is ethical or not, and legal or not, are separate, though related issues.
how many times has this been stated on hn, even if in other words? plenty, I bet.
apart from that, it is sheer common knowledge.
>>is one of the main reasons for the existence of companies, that is, to increase sales, and hopefully, profits
>You're describing the main reason for owning one.
Yes. Is that not obvious?
>This has nothing to do with why we collectively allow them to exist.
you are jumping around, and skirting my question. you, i, or we, may or may not wish to allow them to exist, but what the heck does that have to do with my original question? :
>>>The core issue is that Amazon envisioned Alexa as a product that would help it increase sales.
>>is there anything wrong with that? I kind of thought that is one of the main reasons for the existence of companies, that is, to increase sales, and hopefully, profits.
I doubt that there is any company that envisions a product that will decrease sales, or even keep them flat. then why go to the trouble?
Don't make 8 generations of products that do not profit while simultaneously changing nothing other than their form factor.
> companies don't do businesses for that reason.
I didn't say they did. Perhaps you should slow down and use fewer insults while you craft your replies. In any case, if you are losing money and customers are happy, that's certainly different than losing money and customers are not happy. Would you not agree this is "sheer common knowledge" as well?
> and skirting my question.
The product is a full decade old. This does not seem to factor into your question or arguments at all. Perhaps it should?
I don't see where I used any insults in my earlier reply. saying biz 101, maybe?
as for the rest, I can't really understand what you are saying, so I'll drop out of the discussion now.
in any case, i had no intention of insulting you, sorry if you felt that way.
maybe I was talking in the same way as that architect described, possibly due to having picked up on that trend, after having worked in that company.
What about alcoholic drinks in pubs or bars “2 pints of your best and a glass of house red”.
Alexa may not be great for purchasing from Amazon but this isn’t because humans have never shopped using only their voices. Nor is seeing things required.
Restaurants and catalogs have menus. Street vendors show you their goods.
You don't need to take my word for it. No one uses Alexa this way. The proof is in the outcome.
>They need to see things.
Nyet. Non. Nada.
What world do you live in?
People seeing things and then shopping with their voices are not mutually exclusive actions.
Not only are they complementary, they are very common, and must have been from the dawn of shops.
How many billions of times, worldwide, must people have looked around at some products there, and said "give me 5 foos and 10 bars" at their neighbourhood store or other shop?
heh. maybe I should become a consultant to Jeff, charge him gigabucks.
Are you someone who orders things using the Echo? If not, are you just playing devil's advocate?
but did you notice that I also said:
>or an advanced, literally voice-only version of it, where you don't even have to press any digit keys to respond to voice menus?
above?
For the sake of argument, we can imagine the Echo technology is advanced enough to be on par with speaking to a real person, like your own personal assistant that you trust.
I could see it being useful for recurring purchases when I run out of an item, although I (and I assume most people) get these items from the grocery store. For items you've never purchased before, I could also see it being useful if, like a personal assistant, it prepares a short list of items to choose from based on your purchasing preferences. But I would still rather see the list of the items before making the purchase.
Again, no one buys things using only such an interface. I am middle aged and have never done, not even in pre-e-commerce times.
It is a non-existent behavior, and there was no reason to think Alexa could will it into existence.
I was talking about future possibilities, not the past. I would have thought that was clear from my comment. but maybe it was not worded clearly, or maybe you didn't get it.
>I am middle aged and have never done, not even in pre-e-commerce times.
you are not the same entity as everyone else. you are one, they are numerous.
just the fact that you have never done it does not mean that no one else has ever done it, or would not like to do it.
>It is a non-existent behavior, and there was no reason to think Alexa could will it into existence.
non-existent past behaviours can become future existing behaviours.
I meant Amazon building that feature into Alexa, not that Alexa would create it by itself.
Why would anyone want to do an audio-only interface? If there were a need or desire for it, it would have popped up somewhere else in society. It hasn't.
> you are not the same entity as everyone else. you are one, they are numerous.
OK, let me rephrase that. I've never heard of a single other person buying a single thing using an audio-only interface. It probably happens, but it's rare enough that it's safe to say Amazon was trying to invent a brand new human behavior, which (I will reiterate) is stupid.
>Why would anyone want to do an audio-only interface? If there were a need or desire for it, it would have popped up somewhere else in society. It hasn't.
what utter rubbish you talk, dude.
you are talking repeatedly past me, that is, not directly addressing my replies, instead, you are going off at a tangent each time. that's not the way to conduct a rational argument. it's often seen as evading the point that the other person made (because you don't have a good answer for it), although it can also be just due to poor logic, and due to talking on the basis of emotion rather than reason.
as an example your illogic, to be precise, and referring to both of our points that I quoted just above:
I talked about the future possibilities, and yet you are continuing to harp on the fact that that innovation has not happened yet. does the fact that something has not happened yet, mean that it can never happened in the future? jay. eff. cee. did people think that mobile phones would happen before they happened? or computers? or cars? or fridges? or so many other modern inventions? maybe for some of those cases it was predicted, but not for all, damn sure of that. and I bet some of those at least were not needed or desired earlier. still they happened.
quoting one of your above points again, to make another very valid point:
>>Why would anyone want to do an audio-only interface? If there were a need or desire for it, it would have popped up somewhere else in society. It hasn't.
nonsense, on 2 counts:
1. so you think that if there's a need or desire for something in society, it will automatically "pop up"? by the grace of god, maybe?
2. you say it hasn't.
here is another hn user, NotMichaelBay, in this same subthread, who says that it already exists:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41077865
start of his comment (italics mine):
>That already exists too, but it's also poor UX because it processes your response slower than a person would, and it sometimes misunderstands what you're saying or asks you to repeat.
so he says that it already exists. I don't think he would be making it up. but to address his point about UX, I think his argument that it is poor UX may be wrong. however I have not replied to it yet and may not do it for some more hours, because I have other things to do too.
but in a nutshell:
voice recognition and voice processing technology has progressed in leaps and bounds. it is much better than it was a few years back. I used to be a skeptic about it then, but nowadays it is so good that I use it many times on a daily basis, including for voice typing these hn comments, at least partially. I just have to make a few edits to correct the mistakes that it makes. this is an example of a need and a desire (referring to your comment above), that I, at least, did not know about beforehand, but happily use once it is available. but it did not pop up in society just because I needed it or desired it. it happened because someone innovated it.