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Comment by kbody | Hacker News Reader

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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