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Comment by jxjnskkzxxhx | Hacker News Reader

Oh shit.... I never realized until now that's exactly what the point of Alexa is. I thought the point was like a different UI to Amazon. As in "being able to buy by clicking OR sounding must lead to a strictly larger number of sales than being able to buy by clicking only". So you can imagine my confusion on people telling me that Alexa isn't a good UI.

Of course. The point is to snoop on people to make better "recommendations". Dystopian.

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It can be both. Saying "Alexa, buy eggs" is a lot quicker and easier than loading up Amazon, finding the eggs you like which will probably be the top result for you, and clicking buy (or even Buy Now). Instead, it already knows your preferences in eggs anyway, so just by telling it, you can impulsively buy the eggs without even stopping what you're doing.

Then they get all that juicy "accidental activation" data on top of that.

If only Alexa could be trusted to buy something as seemingly simple as eggs.

You'd just get eggs from whoever sponsored the term "eggs" the highest.

People buy eggs off Amazon? Every now and then the modern world boggles my mind.

I don't think so, but I needed something as an example and it was the first thing that came to mind. Also the idea of someone impulse buying eggs is amusing to me.

Why not? Amazon owns Whole Foods, and Amazon Fresh has existed for almost 20 years now.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GBM7TZJ seems like a totally normal price to pay for eggs these days, although you probably wouldn't just buy a dozen eggs in isolation, given delivery fees and driver tip.

That's not necessarily true.

Amazon is also a ecosystem. Alexa shows you notifications from Amazon like the status of a delivery. It's able to call others (great for family).

Amazon has also the fire kid tablet, fire TV etc.

And if I already use Amazon anyway I'm quite happy if Amazon would recommend me good products I like.

For plenty of things, Alexa is a very good UI.

"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

It's easier to do things/ manipulate big brother when you are part of it.

No one needs to know what else you do.

It's a lot more suspicious to not tell big brother what he wants to hear.

And besides that strategy, dystopian stories sell better. No one would read good feel descriptions.

I thought this was obvious from the name. The phonetics of ”Alexa” are very close to sentences such as ”I like” and ”he/she likes”.

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