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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but just a few decades ago there were people dismissing all of e-commerce saying "why would I order online when I can just pick up the phone and call in my order?" I'm sure before that there were people saying, Why do I need phone ordering when I can just mail an order form to Sears? I think it's a mistake to bet against a more convenient form of consumerism.

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>Sure, but just a few decades ago there were people dismissing all of e-commerce

Were they? From what I recall people were saying, "Why isn't this catalog a webpage yet?"

I'm not sure if buying a bunch of little buttons and plastering them all over my house is necessarily convenient. Convenience is largely counter-intuitive. For example, you'd think everyone would get their groceries delivered at this point, but most of us drive to the grocery store. There's a larger convenience in having all these products at your fingertips, trying different brands, shopping for lower priced items, seeking deals, etc. You lose this flexibility with the Dash. Its also really ugly to have what look like ads plastered all over your home.

I'm surprised we all don't have a home robot with enough computer vision and fuzzy logic to figure out what we're low on and produce a list of items that need to be bought that week. I feel like some kind of robot revolution that was supposed to happen never did, so we're finding weird automation solutions that don't really work. I imagine this is what is was like when computers were rare and you could only use the ones at work because home computers weren't a thing yet. Smith-Corona kept making better and better typewriters but you really just want a word processor and printer.

> "Why isn't this catalog a webpage yet?"

Ah, Google's ill-fated attempt to scan all catalogs and put them online

The problem with Dash is that it doesn't really scale.

I see Dash more like an experiment, it may not be the final product or disapear completely to become something else.

Even if I find this idea wasteful, I think amazon does the right move with just experimenting.

Which part of it do you think doesn't scale?

Each product has its own button

If each button is seen as ad and paid for by the brand shown on it, the costs likely look good from both Amazon's perspective and the brand's perspective.

A button that costs somewhere between $5 and $10 might result in something like $240 worth of sales over its lifetime. (eg. 1 sale per month x $10 sale price x estimated 24 month lifetime)

Seems scalable to me.

I think the concern is that I have, for example, around sixty different spices on my spice rack. Do I stick a button behind each one? My cluttered cabinet with AA batteries, AAA batteries, CFLs, compressed air, WD40, several dozen other items? How about each item in my cluttered fridge?

I think the Amazon Fresh Direct concept mentioned elsewhere by mason55 makes a lot more sense. Stuck to the front of my fridge I want a little scanner--one on my fridge, one by my cabinet, one in my laundry room. Running something across the barcode scanner when it's low/empty is as easy as pressing a button, and doesn't mean I have to put a button on/beside every single item, especially ones that move around my disorganized shelves.

How frequently do you replenish your spices/WD40? If you are a restuarant, then a button would make sense. The dash, in its current form, seems suited to high-turnover products where the sales generated over the devices lifetime can cover the initial cost.

As someone else mentioned though, think of it as "Dash, the physical button" + "Dash, the API". The API is probably the long term goal, the physical button is just a (temporary) drop-dead simple API client that people can use today. Amazon is likely betting on smart-fridges/-pantries/-homes catching up in the future

Edit: in the near-future, I imagine Amazon adding a touchscreen (so it's not product specific) without adding much to BoM. They can also charge manufactures for on-device screen-time (who doesn't like ads that convert to an immediate sale?)

I think the next iteration is (or should be) a Dash button with an e-ink screen built in that can order any item and the screen changes to display the brand and name of the item it's setup to order.

Trying to add a changing ad screen to this would kill the battery life because of the check-ins to fetch the next ad. I also don't see that generating many sales because the customer would still need to change their set order, I think few people would accept Amazon outright changing what the button ordered based on the current ad.

It scales as much as is needed, which is basically zero. The rate of growth in the number of products I buy is effectively zero. I use one shaving cream, one soap, one shampoo, one detergent, the same number I used 10, 20, 30 years ago and the same I will likely use for the rest of my life.

Also, I don't need a wall of buttons, a few inside the bathroom cabinet, a few inside the kitchen cabinet, a few at my workbench, in the garage, in my shed, is all I need.

Some form of Dash exist with industrial manufacturing and assembly( some part call it bins) Where the no of items are limited ,where obviously it scales nicely. To think that the Dash is a solution for all the items is not productive. I think Dash may have market for consumer items like diapers,sodas, Ramens kind of stuff, basically which once you consume more frequently.

Writing it off might be premature, at least it is worth a try.

This isn't the scaling phase. Dash is also an API for automated ordering. And the button is a test to measure the usefulness of such API.Once there's data proving the idea, and an available API, Amazon and it's partners will scale this.

Good point about being an API. When combined with RFID, I can imagine smart fridges / washing machines utilizing this API to automatically order (or suggesting human do a 1-click order) when your Tide is about to run out.

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