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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

I think it's ridiculous just because it clearly involved a lot of effort to solve a problem that doesn't really need solving. The choice isn't between a button and the massive hassle you describe. The choice is between a button and ordering the product on your smartphone in ten seconds, or picking up the product at the grocery store the next time you're there.

How often do you need laundry detergent? Every two weeks? If this button saves you ten seconds each time, that's a total of 4.3 minutes per year saved. And that assumes you buy the stuff one at a time instead of getting a bunch at once.

Amazon as a whole is great because you can use it for so much stuff. Saving time on a rare purchase is almost pointless, but saving time on all your rare purchases put together can be significant. But this button thingy is inherently single-product.

This is basically the ordering-side equivalent of when you buy three small items from Amazon and they get shipped to you in three separate gigantic boxes filled with vast amounts of padding. Maybe it makes sense when you see the big picture, but I can't help but scream "why??"

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This button isn't about saving time, it's about preventing the instances of not having something when you need it. The moment when you realize you need more of something is typically when you're using it. If you can literally just hit a button to order more, that's a significant change from having to do something else to order more.

Apparently carrying one's phone in one's pocket is less common than I thought.

Pressing a button is milliseconds, and can be done as a complete afterthought, while still doing your current task. Taking out your phone, navigating to a website and placing an order means you have to stop what you are doing, and do something else.

When the time to complete tasks changes by an order of magnitude - even going from seconds down to milliseconds - our behavior tends to change. We easily accept this notion with developer related tasks such as compiling and testing. I don't see a difference here.

Imagine if developers only built and tested once or twice a month.

Now I come out with a new product where the entire pitch is, that build-and-compile you do once or twice a month now takes one second instead of ten! Oh, and it only works for one project. If you work on multiple projects, buy multiple products.

Would this be worthwhile? I don't see it.

Developer tasks like compiling and testing benefit from small efficiency gains because we do them constantly. Or the efficiency gains allow us to move from a model where we do them rarely to a model where we do them constantly. Neither one applies here. You won't buy detergent any more frequently with this button, and it's not something you do often.

It's not just about time saved. I tend to forget things I don't do often, so I automate them, even though setting up the automation might take more time than it will save me. As soon as the automation is set up, I no longer need to worry about it, and next time I can just push the button.

I won't buy detergent more frequently, but because it's easier, I'm more likely to be in a situation where I actually have it where I need it. If I could buy either at the moment I realize I'm about to run out, I would. Instead, I have to remember when I'm out at the grocery store, and I often forget, and then end up having to make a special trip the next day just to pick up that one thing.

I, for one, don't have my phone handy when I'm doing laundry in my pajamas, or while shaving in my bathrobe.

Phones are annoying, and the UI of most apps is user-hostile. Here are the equivalent steps you have to do to accomplish the same thing as this button does:

    - Wipe your hands from moisture/whatever you had on them.
    - Find your phone in your pocket.
    - Orient it.
    - Unlock it.
    - Exit whatever app you left running in the foreground.
    - Open the app drawer.
    - Find the ordering app.
    - Click through several layers of UI to get to the right product.

And only now you're in the same position as after just pressing a button. This is a significant cognitive load. When I realize I need to order something, I want to order it, not navigate through countless steps. Having to do more than two actions is too much.

Exactly, a cellphone app can get the job done but it is a great cognitive deviation from whatever task you had at hand at the moment you realize you ran out of something(1). So amazon's dash button is not an innovation on getting something done, but get it done faster and more conveniently, and that alone makes sense for an enterprise whose profit depends greatly from understanding consumer behavior. So I agree with TeMPOraL, it is not ridiculous at all.

And there's a bigger picture outside of comparing the convenience between using this little button as opposed to mobile apps, but that's off topic for this branch of the conversation, if you're interested IMHO & my brief reasoning, read this other brach[2] (also because DRY).

(1): Optimally you realize you are about to run out of something before it happens. [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9299505

You have probably never worn women's jeans. They have ridiculously small pockets, barely big enough to squeeze my S5 into.

> This button isn't about saving time

... it's about creating a barrier to exit so that your customers won't comparison shop for different brands of detergent.

The increased switching cost isn't by force, though. Customers are less likely to switch because of convenience -- you're paying for the conveniene which, I think, means that Amazon is providing a service that consumers want.

Naturally. I'm just saying a few months down the road, you forget to care exactly how much that convenience is costing you.

I never care. I don't comparison shop. I always tick the "Prime only" button, even if it costs me extra. It's one of the nice luxuries of earning enough money that prices for consumables generally does not matter.

I don't know what the things I used in the dinner I just prepared costs. I only know roughly how much my weekly grocery bill comes to (it's all delivered - the order is auto-populated by Ocado's algorithms, so if I don't do anything I get a reasonable default set of products based on what I usually buy). And I like it that way.

You're living post-scarcity. Let's hope everyone will be able to, at some point.

Everyone who pays $100/year to get free two-day shipping for Amazon products lives post-scarcity.

Exactly. The ability to just tap some buttons on your phone and have an item show up doorstep is magical. The dash button is just another step in that direction. Its ultimate in convenience for people who want it.

It said in the video that you can choose what the button puchases. So, you can switch as much as you want. It may be a barrier to using something other than amazon, but you could make time to check to see if there are better deals and then switch the API call.

No, that's easily solved: you can set the product the button purchases (obviously), and the day after the API is made available a zillion little intercept-button-push-then-scrap-n-compare projects will pop-up on HN that find you the lowest priced product just in time when you push the button.

Some people seem to be missing the point and I don't blame you because brands are given a lot of protagonism in their announcement. But I think the presence of renowned/popular brands in their announcement is just marketing collateral as part of a bit more complex marketing strategy that involved partnerships, and that might be confusing for anyone if deeper thought is not involved.

IMHO the essence of this product is neither about enforcing brand loyalty nor saving time.

1- Brand loyalty benefits well established brands, yes, so amazon probably got big companies on board by offering brand placement on their marketing material among other benefits.

2- Saving time (and cognitive flow/energy) benefits consumers, yes. There is some risk to follow brand reputation instead of product quality, agree, but that is a manageable risk, so amazon can potentially get consumers on board.

The essence and reason of why this product/service came to be, answers to one question only; 'How does amazon benefit?' and it is brilliant.

From my POV this little button is not just a way to introduce an enhanced experience to an existing and growing consumer behavior[1] that would result in greater sales for amazon; more than a product they introduced a service/platform[2] that can be seamlessly integrated to new home appliances, so amazon is effectively expanding its presence into a diverse and conveniently positioned custom/customizable 'points of sale' inside people's homes, making itself more and more ubiquitous as time goes by and more companies and individual innovators adopt their new service/platform, and their investment to accomplish this was little compared to the alternative of investing in manufacturing their own home appliances, but that's not brilliant, that's only natural and expected from a company like amazon.

It also places amazon's brand on not all but many people's minds as a high-tech high-quality home appliances brand by association to the actual home appliances brands, and amazon is not really manufacturing that kind of hardware (...yet), that's the brilliant part (an opportunity that they may or may never exploit, either because non-compete agreements or because it wouldn't make sense for their business plans or because Jeff Bezos decides not to because reasons, an opportunity nonetheless).

[1]: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-future-of-food-delivery-1/... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-replenishment-service

Precisely. Everybody here is talking about the button, but for Amazon this is about selling zillions of these buttons to product manufactures and achieving lock-in.

Its about the API and what new purchasing flows will be created by eager startups, resulting in new MRR for Amazon.

My problem is with some items that I buy only twice a month, like bath soap or mayonnaise. I notice that it's about get empty (or it's already empty :() and I put them in my mental to-buy list. If I'm lucky I'll remember them the next time that I go to the supermarket. And probably also the following time and a few more times until I realize that I got a lot of it and I remove the item from the list. So I don't have to buy them for a few weeks...

I really like that it ignores the repeated pushes.

> Unless you elect otherwise, Dash Button responds only to your first press until your order is delivered.

I switched to buying things of this nature in bulk. You're more prone to ordering more of something if you realize you're down to the last 3 out of 10. That gives you 3 more tries to make sure you order it.

I don't have space in my apartment for three of everything.

Your point is my solution doesn't work for you because it would require you to purchase three of everything you would ever purchase? What an odd way to live your life.

I buy those things like...once every 3 months

I'm pretty sure my jar of mayo has lasted me for, like, a year.

I do something similar except that I use an app (AnyList) rather than keeping a mental list. Better yet the app is shared with my fiance. Whichever of us is next in the store (usually me) can be sure to get everything.

Another good use case is that I can head to the store as soon as I realize we're out of something, and by the time I get there, the list has everything else that she thought of.

Actually, it's about a vendor making sure you buy their brand (again) when you need to fill up instead of going to the store and looking at the 50 choices in the detergent aisle one more time.

Really? Lots of people regularly switching their detergent?

Yes, really.

Do this: pretend you own Tide. Do you want people pressing a button that sends you money for more tide, or do you want them going here: https://www.google.com/search?q=laundry+aisle&espv=2&biw=144...

Oh yea. Commodities. Competing to win marginally against a well-known set of consumer value drivers.

Never mind the time saving, what's the real time cost? How long does the battery last? How do you know when it fails? How exploitable is it? How do I do security updates?

This. The primary purpose is to avoid the pain of not having what you need, and the arguments and bad mood that follows, simply because you didn't add something to a list or thought you would remember to buy but didn't

The product is designed for the future, not for the past. In the past, people were always going to the grocery store, so you could grab what you need "when you're there".

I live in silicon valley where all these new delivery services are being tested, and I almost never go to the store. Google Shopping Express delivers non-perishable groceries to my home within 24 hours, Instacart delivers fresh groceries within 2 hours, and Amazon delivers everything else I need within 2 days. I really want to sign up for Amazon Fresh because they deliver perishables and everything else same day, but it's a little pricey.

I hate going to the store now (especially since our local market isn't very nice - I love a good market). For me it is a big chore. I work from home so I'm rarely even "driving by" the market.

Amazon, google, and others want to enable a world where no one goes to the store (and we all order from them). It's nice not having to go to the store. Your cute calculation of 4.3 minutes saved is making assumptions that totally don't apply to people like me. I don't want to take a 30 minute experience and shave ten seconds off, I want to eliminate the trips to the store entirely.

It's fine if you don't see the need for new products, but just because you don't see the need doesn't mean there isn't one. Not saying this product has a need (I feel like I can use my smartphone) but you've completely missed the big picture of deliveries for everything. In San Francisco you can get a bento box delivered in 15 minutes for $12, and I just got a flyer for dinners delivered starting at $8.

Everyone wants to do deliveries, and once they're done by robot it will be so cheap we'll all have it.

I totally understand delivery for everything. I want it.

What I don't understand is button-for-delivery for uncommonly ordered items.

You want to order detergent online? Great! Me too! But why do you need a specialized button that only does that? That's the part that makes no sense.

The example they use is detergent because showing someone reaching for toilet paper and realizing she needs a refill isn't such an easy commercial to shoot.

So you run out of paper, press the button and, under 2 minutes, an Amazon InstaPaper delivery drone arrives (yes, they bought the service and the brand), entering your apartment thanks to wonders of a cloud-synced Lockitron, and drops the paper next to the toilet door. As it leaves, you're left wondering if maybe it's time to buy that Amazon Echo and have it react to you shouting "OH FK", saving you from having to clean the button...

I just yell over to Alexa (Amazon Echo) to add it to the shopping list.

I'll give you an actual scenario, maybe you can relate: One of your kids is sick and yells for attention. You shuffle in the next load of bedcovers into the washing machine while trying to remember to call the doctor for an appointment. The detergent box is near-empty. If you are like me, it could take days until you get the 20s of uninterrupted time to jot down the detergent to your shopping list. Fast forward 1 week. No detergent. You are out of bed covers. The other kid is sick. Someone hands you an Amazon Dash that orders your standard detergent. You break down and cry, thanking that someone for the act of kindness. OK, the last part is exaggerated.

Now what about when the price goes up? Will you ever even notice how much the increase was? Would you have considered switching brands? Or sizes? Did you have time to go through your email receipts, or now that the kid was finally asleep, did you open a beer and sit down with your partner?

I'm guessing that the people using this, and order-everything-online are relatively price insensitive for the types of things this appears to be targeting. Saving $0.30 or even $1-2 probably isn't going to make it worth it for me to reconfigure or find a new brand.

It's also self-selecting: if you ARE searching for the absolutely lowest price, or are price sensitive, you're not the right target audience for this kind of tech or company :)

>> But why do you need a specialized button that only does that? That's the part that makes no sense.

It -does- make sense if you take it as a way to introduce not a product ("specialized button") but a platform[1] for long overdue and much needed innovation that some very influential people have started to fund and promote[2]. It is not the only way to do it, but it is amazon's way to facilitate it and in the process get some market pioneering advantages. A company like amazon doesn't have the infrastructure to start building home appliances but it required little effort for them to contribute in a way that brings them great benefits. Smart move, amazon.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-replenishment-service [2]: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-future-of-food-delivery-1/...

If you're in the bay, use safeway delivery. They do perishable s, beer, and all.

Instacart does all of those as well.

| but I can't help but scream "why??"

Because it's a tangible reminder that you need to buy new X and it removes all the barriers entirely to that. It's wildly convenient.

Might I remind you:

- Locate mobile device

- Swipe/Unlock mobile device

- Locate Safari App/Amazon app

- Tap and wait for Safari to load

- Access amazon.com

- Type in 'X'

- Locate results and click on option

- Press 'one click purchase' for irony

vs.

- Press a button.

It's mildly convenient. There's nothing wrong with mild conveniences, of course. I love them! But I don't see the point in mild conveniences for something you do 20-30 times a year when it requires dedicated hardware.

If the use case was something like, push this button and dinner arrives, I'd say it's fantastic. If it was something like, push this button on your phone to re-order detergent, I'd say that's pretty sensible. But a physical button to order an infrequently ordered product makes no sense to me.

Even when the price of a physical button is $0?

Even for Amazon it's cheap, and quickly pays for itself.

The line between physical and digital is blurring more every day.

Do you really think that ordering something online from the comfort of your couch, in your underwear, is so inconvenient that you need a magic button to press when you run out of laundry detergent? You buy the big jug of high-efficiency stuff that's good for something like 100 loads, that means you need new detergent what, 5 times a year?

Or are you just being hyperbolic?

I don't know about you, but I make a trip to the grocery store about 1.5x every week anyways. I definitely would never use an online food/grocery service; I prefer to see the lettuce I'm buying when I take it off the shelf.

So, given that I'm already at the grocery store something like 80 times a year, and assuming I need to buy more laundry detergent 5 times a year, that's 16 opportunities for me to not pay Amazon shipping and just pick up a jug of detergent when I'm going to be out shopping anyways.

Assuming this isn't an April 1 joke and I just got trolled, hard, this is definitely a solution in search of a problem.

I'm at the grocery store approximately zero times a year. For me a "summon cat litter" button would be a marked improvement in my life.

Interesting. Do you order groceries online or something?

If so, what happens when, say, your apples come bruised?

> If so, what happens when, say, your apples come bruised?

Me: these apples are bruised

Tesco man: sorry sir, let me refund that straight away. And keep the apples, you could make a pie with them.

Though in five years of online grocery shopping I've only returned a couple of items. The apples have made it all the way unbruised from New Zealand after all, four more miles is nothing.

So in other words, if your apples show up bruised, you're still stuck with bruised apples? And then you have to wait for the new unbruised ones to arrive?

That sounds like a much worse experience than simply going to the market and picking out unbruised apples.

Do you really think that getting a few bruised apples once or twice a year, if that, and keeping them for free when this happens until the replacement comes, is so unacceptable that you need to be going to the grocery store each and every time to handpick and carry carefully your apples back home?

Or are you just being hyperbolic?

Are you asking if I'd rather pay less and get quality fruit every time, or pay more and potentially not get quality fruit every time?

Tough call, but I guess I'd rather pay less and get quality fruit every time.

Shopping takes maximum 45 minutes and I like browsing the different cuts of meat at the market and/or my local butcher.

This is relatively common in the UK. Online grocery shopping is very much mainstream. All of the major supermarkets offer it, plus Ocado which is online only (and the best).

For the Ocado-deprived, the main feature that makes me stick with Ocado is that when I forget to make an order, they pick a set of products based on my purchase history, and delivery it at my usual fixed weekly slot anyway.

It is predictable enough (and with options for "always include" and "never automatically include") that we quite often don't bother adjusting the order.

My grocery shopping have never been less stressful.

We've been using Ocado for the last few weeks as my wife was finding it too much hassle to go to the supermarket with a toddler. It's freed up a lot of time and the service and quality has been excellent.

I hadn't noticed that they help you to remember your order and try to deliver what you normally have. Is this automatic then. What happens if you are out of the country for a couple of weeks?

Is this kind of service not common in the US then? It seems to be massive in the UK now.

You tell them, and they refund you, and they look into their operations and figure out how they let bruised apples slip into a customer's order so the problem can be remedied.

But you're still left with bruised apples.

Had you gone to the market you would not have bruised apples.

And yet somehow, FreshDirect's managed to stay in business since 2002.

When the options are taking the L to Whole Foods vs ordering Fresh Direct, both options suck. Fresh Direct just sucks slightly less.

I value my time more than I value not experiencing the pathetically infinitesimal trauma of the occasional bruised apple (something I experienced not once in the 6 years I lived in Santa Clara and had 100% of my groceries delivered).

The future is gonna happen whether you're a part of it or not.

Nail on the head.

So are marketing gimmicks that masquerade as conveniences.

What's your point? Neither of us knows which products are here to stay and which aren't.

Every single invention in the human history has been about making things easy. Including the very invention of the wheel itself.

Did the early humans really need wheels, when they were already fit enough to run and carry weights?

I don't need it. But I'd like to have a dozen or so of them spread around the house near wherever I'm likely to notice I'm out of something.

You may make a trip to the grocery store about 1.5x every week, but I "never" go to the grocery store any more - it's all delivered. I can not imagine going back to shopping in person other than the odd "emergency" purchase.

More importantly to cover the various other uses I could see for this, such as printer toner, just the grocery store would be insufficient.

This is a solution in search of a different demographics than you. Like me.

> Do you really think that ordering something online from the comfort of your couch, in your underwear, is so inconvenient that you need a magic button to press when you run out of laundry detergent?

Maybe that's your daily pattern, but for example in my case, this almost never happens. I just don't sit on my couch thinking about home maintenance; I have too much other, more interesting stuff to do. Phones have really annoying, user-hostile UI, so I don't even use mine much at home. They are good enough for commuting, when I can't really do anything else except maybe read a book, so I schedule tasks I can do from my spartphone for the to/from-work route.

Half of those steps would be eliminated if Amazon would simply add a "favorites" or "regular items" panel to their mobile app, where all the "buttons" for the items you regularly need would be displayed, and you could just tap on one to re-order it. Given the fact that people almost always have their smartphone with them now, having a separate external button for every product is ridiculously redundant.

The time I'm least likely to have my phone with me is when doing things like starting the laundry, or starting the dishwasher, or grabbing the last soda in the fridge, or similar stuff around the house, where I may have left the phone somewhere else in the house.

Pretty much every other time the phone will be in my pocket and the value would be less. But even then it'd mean fishing my phone out, unlocking, starting an app instead of just pushing a button. Not torture by any means, but if I can just stick a button there and not have to think about it again, then awesome.

This does solve a problem, but just not the problem that you are mentioning. It solves Amazon's problem of how to get you to buy more stuff from them.

One of the primary rules of running a business is to make it as easy as possible for people to give you their money. This makes it ridiculously easy.

I'm sure it's great for Amazon when someone gets one of these things. For a relatively small cost, you've likely permanently neutralized all possibility of switching brands or suppliers, and substantially reduced awareness of price increases. From that perspective, this is clearly the product of a diabolical genius mind. I just don't get why anyone else would care....

Sorry, but ordering stuff from Amazon on my iPhone takes way more than 10 seconds. I have to:

1. Find my iPhone (I don't carry it with me around the house)

2. Enter my PIN to unlock it

3. Open Safari

4. Navigate to Amazon.com

5. Type in their search bar and browse through the results

6. Click on the product I want

7. Add it to my cart

8. Go to check out and confirm settings (e.g. delivery speed)

9. Place order

It's actually way more cumbersome than it has to be.

1. Find my iPhone

From the description of it, I think the button wouldn't work if you don't carry a phone with you, as it depends on it.

I think it does work without your phone on you - it says it uses wifi, so as long as your phone is currently on your wifi network, it sounds like it will work. That should be likely for most people, even if they don't carry their phones with them.

The phone is only required for setup (configuring the button's WiFi connection to your router). Once that is complete, the button talks to your router directly via WiFi, with no phone required.

Its about how much time it takes less to order from Amazon then it takes to either grab an additional item when you are already at the store, or make a trip to the store just for one item.

If you use their app instead of their web site, and you order it often, it'll be way faster. Of course, if you don't carry your phone with you then that's not going to work, but it seems like putting your phone in your pocket is a better solution than a specialized single-purpose button widget.

From the description, it sounds like you don't need your phone with you. If it used bluetooth, then I think you would. But it uses wifi. So as long as your phone is on your wifi network, then it should work.

My point is that if you have your phone in your pocket, you can use it to place an order directly, rather than relying on a separate single-purpose widget.

You're making assumptions about what people are wearing around the house that are by no means universal.

> My point is that if you have your phone in your pocket

When I'm in the privacy of my own home, and I'm not expecting guests, you'd be hard pressed to find me dressed at all, let alone in anything that has pockets ;)

Yes. This is truly great design thinking.

But wait, how do you handle nudists?

I'm trying to make a haiku something like this:

Out of clean clothes today,

Also laundry detergent,

Imagine surprise face on UPS man when I open door.

Never again ask Alexa,

"Get me some clean clothes!"

Out of clothes today,

out of detergent, as well.

Hi UPS man.

Barely an adult

Push button like a hamster

When I need something

Wow you are right! It sounds so convenient when you manufacture a description to make it sound like we are currently going through 9 arduous steps instead of opening a website!

Regardless of whether the 9 steps I listed are arduous, the fact stands that ordering some friggin' laundry detergent should not require 9 steps.

It's not about opening a website, its about having technology integrated into your workflow such that you don't have to use a computer to finish a task.

There was an article posted about usage of bands in Disney world. The idea is to have technology integrated with you such that the idea of interacting with a generic computer shouldn't exist.

what about the consequences of "streamlining" all these activities? We will create tons of disposable, one-purpose devices to add "convenience" to our life?

I pretty much agree with him. Although I am a smartphone user I don't think they are as practical as usually portrait. I'd rather press a single button on my washing machine to get more detergent than go through the hassle of pulling my phone, unlocking it, trying to type into an on-screen keyboard (where I'll get it wrong 4 times) etc etc. Actually, I HATE pulling my phone to look stuff up on it, it's usually a huge hassle caused by the combination of shitty wait times til things happen (not just connecting to stuff - why do I have to watch a 0.5s animation of stuff sliding or fading for everything I want to do on it?) + clumsy fingers.

For things you regularly buy (but not regularly enough to set up a subscription), you can speed that up quite a bit by going to your order history, and using the search field there that searches just within your past orders. Find a prior order for that product and use the "But It Again" button.

"Siri, I need laundry detergent. And twinkies. Lots of twinkies."

There is a better solution than spreading branded landfill buttons across your house!

> I think it's ridiculous

Amazon have had a few "ridiculous" ideas (e.g. drone delivery, 1 hour delivery, pre-emptive shipping). I think they know these ideas are a stretch but it gets people thinking in a new way and out of it there may be a few more solid ideas. Product marketing by annealing if you will.

I agree. I see why they do it. But that doesn't mean some of the ideas aren't ridiculous all the same.

This is precisely what the drone delivery is about. Small items you need now.

It's not about saving time, it's about avoiding context switches. Also I'm really bad at remembering that I'm out of something even 5 seconds later, much less when I'm at the store racking my brain for what I'm running low on.

I solved this problem with a notepad in my back pocket. Write it down as soon as I realize I need it, and refer to it next time I'm at the store. Not saying it invalidates this Amazon offering, just a suggestion if this is a real problem you're struggling with.

Same here, but just a notes app on my phone. If I think of a thing, I put it in there, and I get to forget about it. I then pull it up when I go to the store.

Is this like, what society wants though? Are we all here to be waited on hand and foot, have our every need taken care of? Do we end up being able to solve more real problems this way, or do we end in a dearth of imagination? Interesting implications - we either end up with a higher percentage of people being self-actualized or an idiotistopia a la wall-e and idiocracy.

I think society as a whole does want to be taken care of in that way. I don't know that it will ever lead to mass idiocy but I definitely notice a laziness in some friends who are overly attached to their phones or cars. Emphasis on overly attached, it's totally possible to use these tools effectively but the power can be seductive.

I think I'm better off for the effort I put into things like buying detergent, walking to work and figuring out my way instead of using GMaps. It's not like I'd be worse off if I stopped doing any one of those things, but the lifestyle in aggregate where you have a button for everything does have an impact I think.

I have a hard time seeing how people can develop the schlep tolerance and planning skill to do something challenging and big if they can't remember to buy detergent.

I ordered the Amazon Echo for this - which will ship sometime in the next century. But this now makes it obsolete.

I think this is a funny comment in context of the opposite comment made elsewhere here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9297279

Let's merge these two threads together and see which wins!

Really? They're still backlogged? Are they being hand crafted by a small village of elves?

I did eventually get mine back in February or so. The add to shopping list feature is very convenient. I don't see this obsoleting that Echo function which is much more general purpose. (Can add anything whether you get it from Amazon or somewhere else.)

Make a shopping list?

Buying groceries is a solved problem, mostly.

> How often do you need laundry detergent? Every two weeks? If this button saves you ten seconds each time, that's a total of 4.3 minutes per year saved

It takes more than 10 seconds to go to the store and get detergent. I suppose it'll save the 30 seconds it takes to order detergent on a phone, but the big gain is that it's RIGHT THERE so you can't forget to order it and then find yourself dead in the water and have to go to the store to get detergent instead of wait 2 days for amazon to deliver it.

You don't go to the store to buy detergent. You go to the store to buy a whole bundle of items, and you go regardless of whether or not you need detergent. 10 seconds is IMO a decent approximation of the marginal cost of time for adding detergent to the stuff you buy.

As for the big gain being that it's right there, I figured everybody's phones are right there too. Apparently not everybody does that. Seems like if you really find this to be a problem, you could just keep your phone in your pocket.

10 seconds is the marginal cost /if you're going to the store/. It's entirely possible to make zero regular trips to the store under normal conditions. I'd use the heck out of a "cause more cat litter to arrive in a day or so" button, in fact I have a bookmark on my laptop for just this use. Mobile apps are (imo) universally horrible for this kind of directed action.

My question/complaint is basically: rather than put all this effort behind a single-purpose button, why not work on reducing the friction for using a mobile app for the same purpose? There's no reason you couldn't have, say, a button on your phone's home screen where pushing it causes cat litter to arrive. This would be about as convenient, and way more flexible.

Edit: and the answer is pretty clear, I think. If people actually go for this, it'll be a massive advantage for Amazon. It essentially banishes competition permanently for people who use the button regularly. It'll also make people much less price sensitive. So I completely understand why Amazon would try to push this. I just don't understand why anyone else finds it interesting besides that.

Personally I think smartphones will never be good at known-goal interaction. They're general-purpose devices with a hilariously low-throughput interface that need to accommodate low-tech users. You're always going to have to navigate a bunch of screens to get to any given function because the real estate is so small.

Could apps be better? Sure. Can any app get as good as a button that's already right there when you realize you need a replacement? I don't see how.

Anytime I pull my phone out to do something specific I end up checking twitter and forget what I wanted to do.

How do you get your food and other things? I'm genuinely interested. I've lived for periods where I ate out every meal but I still ended up in a store now and then.

Relevant: https://medium.com/matter/the-shut-in-economy-ec3ec1294816

Safeway or another chain probably delivers if you're in a major metro. Some smaller cities have local stores with online ordering, too. And, of course, with some more trouble, you can get groceries delivered in just about any populated area if you have access to a phone.

At my apartment, I have to walk a bit of distance from my car to get inside... When I get deliveriesp, they come right to my door.

> How often do you need laundry detergent? Every two weeks? If this button saves you ten seconds each time, that's a total of 4.3 minutes per year saved. And that assumes you buy the stuff one at a time instead of getting a bunch at once.

Eh about once every 2 months.

It's taken me 2 weeks so far to remember to get it. I go to the store almost daily. :(

That seems like a pretty solvable behavioral problem. I hesitate to recommend using some todo application since todo apps have turned into kind of a joke in the last few years, but.. maybe try using a todo app?

Why use a todo app that requires me to grab my phone, unlock, start an app and enter a todo item, when I could instead just press a button that'll be right in front of me at the moment I notice I'll need more of some product soon?

I was responding to this:

> It's taken me 2 weeks so far to remember to get it. I go to the store almost daily. :(

This is a behavior that isn't going to change by having a thousand buttons all over your house. Maybe you won't ever worry about running out of detergent or dogfood again, but there's always something else. "Oh shit, I bought pasta for dinner but I forgot to buy pasta sauce!" What's the solution, get a pasta sauce button?

> What's the solution, get a pasta sauce button?

I see nothing wrong with dedicating a wall of my kitchen entirely to Amazon buttons for everything in my fridge and pantry. :)

As I mentioned in another comment, though, a better system would probably be to use some cheap, single-purpose wall-mountable tablet computer (probably e-Ink based, maybe even with a column of physical buttons instead of a touchscreen to bring costs down to a pittance) that one could load up with a list of products that need to be routinely reordered for a partiuclar room. If prices could be brought down considerably (if not free with Prime membership, as is being proposed for these Dash buttons), this could be pretty viable.

IMHO Todo apps on phones are useless for this reason.

If I cannot check a list in 2 seconds of pulling out whatever said list is stored on, I am done.

I miss my old Palm. One push of the task list button and I could see what I needed to do next.

The choice is between a button and ordering the product on your smartphone in ten seconds, or picking up the product at the grocery store the next time you're there.

The choice is between having to remember to buy the product next time you go shopping, having to remember to order the product next time you are in front of the proper device, or not having to remember a thing.

Being able to move a task to 'done' as soon as it is recognized is a savings in cognitive load far more valuable than any time savings.

Then again, I am the type of person who frequently says "might as well do it now before I forget." Younger, more single people might not see the value in this sort of thing.

Maybe you can order something in ten seconds if you really try, but it's not really about the time, it's about the experience. If I go to the Amazon web site, I'm bombarded with a LOT of irrelevant, distracting information. Having a button next to my washing machine means reordering barely even interrupts the flow of what I'm doing.

Clearly Amazon understands that human aspect, and credit to them for not getting stuck on the idea that if I have to go to the web site, they can up-sell while I'm there.

I don't get household supplies from Amazon now, but this is making me consider it just as soon as I've compared prices.

Just compared a bottle of Tide. $32 from Amazon compared to $15 from the store with a coupon. If other things are priced as badly, I certainly won't be bothering with it.

"I think it's ridiculous just because it clearly involved a lot of effort to solve a problem that doesn't really need solving. "

I suspect something similar was said by the horse owner the first time they saw a car.

To take that further, Amazon will automatically re-order products for you if you tell them to on their site, via their subscription service.

There's an obvious reason Amazon is doing this: they're trying to continue to grow their share of the consumer's brain. When someone thinks about shopping, Amazon wants to be on the very short list of that thinking. So this button is a relatively inexpensive way to keep doing that. Get into someone's house, get into someone's mind, and try to show yourself as innovative.

I think time savings is the wrong way to think about this. I also don't think people are in the habit of ordering things as soon as they need them. I suspect the item goes onto a list (physical or not), which then has to be processed.

With this system instead of adding an item to your list to process later it's processed immediately.

> I think it's ridiculous just because it clearly involved a lot of effort to solve a problem that doesn't really need solving.

Perhaps you don't see the value in it, but that doesn't make it ridiculous. Why not just move along instead of complaining about a new option for those who do happen to appreciate it?

I'd use this. Every time I return from the store, there's always something I forgot to purchase. Yes, I so use a list. The problem is when, say, cooking, I actually focus on what I'm doing. When I'm running low on something, I don't rush to my phone to log it because it's an interruption that takes away from cooking (especially when there's a notification waiting for you). Amazon is providing an extremely low-friction solution that won't take your away from what you're focusing on.

> The choice is between a button and ordering the product on your smartphone in ten seconds, or picking up the product at the grocery store the next time you're there.

I don't know how anyone actually remembers to do this. I know I don't. What inevitably ends up happening is that, despite making a bunch of trips to the store, at some point I'll discover that I'm out of dog food and make a purpose-specific trip to pick some up so my dog can eat. Later that day I'll remember, when I go to do laundry, that I'm also out of detergent. Then it will be dishwasher tablets.

Between my wife and I, we inevitably have to pick-up diapers at the grocery store between amazon diaper orders (we are irrational and don't have a diaper subscription from amazon)...Having a button in the diaper drawer would go a long way in terms of reducing friction, friction caused by sleep deprivation, that diaper rash, and n other immediate needs of your child which get in the way of picking up that smartphone and placing the order the old-fashion(?) way.

It's not the online ordering that I need to save time on, it's having to make a trip NOW because I forgot to order more <X> ahead of time. That extra trip to Target takes a whole heck of a lot longer than 10 seconds, and when I consider how many extra Target runs I make every year it adds up fast.

This only applies if you're incapable of buying the stuff ahead of time without the button. I suppose some people might qualify for that, but is it really a common thing? Don't you have your phone right there already?

I'm not incapable at all, but the point is I have to stop whatever it is I am doing in order to do it. If I'm in the middle of something, I may think to myself "I need to buy more toilet paper soon" but not actually follow through the act of doing it. You've never ran out of a commoditized good before?

It's definitely a common thing for me and my fiancee - we're not forgetful people, just busy. The less disruptions and banal activity in my life the better.

I can't say I've run out of anything like this in years, no.

Why not order it on your phone at the moment you notice that you're running low? You can do that right now, without a special Amazon button.

Because that may distract from whatever I am doing. If you haven't ran out of any sort of consumable in years, then obviously you don't have that problem. It doesn't sound like this product is for you, but there are plenty of others like myself who would benefit from this.

I am in top 1% US population by income, graduated from elite university with almost 4.0 GPA and I am often incapable of buying stuff in advance. I am sure I am not the only one.

Last month I had to go to store at least twice in the morning before work because we ran out of milk and my two year old was close to having mental breakdown without cereals for breakfast. We use combination of Google Shopping Express, Walmart and Safeway delivery services - they are godsend and save us enormous amount of time. Unfortunately Amazon Fresh is not available where we live.

Having one second ordering for regular staples will marketdly improve ordering process, especially if buttons are reliable and convinient to use.

There is also the financial danger of, here I am at Target, may as well get my money's worth for the car gasoline and buy a whole cart full of stuff (from target not amazon). And every dollar I spend at target is a dollar I won't spend at amazon. All because I ran out of laundry detergent.

Every bottle of Tide I buy at target also means amazon just lost out on a toilet paper sale and a paper towel sale and maybe some food if its a supertarget and all that other stuff target sells. Its not amazon selling a $20 bottle of tide but preventing the target sale of a $120 shopping cart full of junk.

I think the hardware component is a promotional item just to get people used to and eventually using a software component, such as a short list of essentials quickly accessible through the Amazon app. Getting people excited and changing behavior is hard through, and I think this may be purely for that.

You're asking people to abstain from something that requires less work than what you're recommending. For most people the incentives just aren't in the direction you're arguing.

I'm afraid I don't understand your comment. What am I asking people to abstain from?

I signed up for this. I want this button -- but because I want to hack it so I can have buttons for other shit.

This reeks of a solution in search of a problem.

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