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263
Amazon Mulls $5 to $10 monthly price tag for unprofitable Alexa service, AI revamp (www.reuters.com)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology
118 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a major revamp of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include a conversational generative AI with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of around $5 to access the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company's plans.

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[–] themeatbridge 184 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Alexa was never supposed to make money by itself. It was supposed to do two things, collect information and lower the barrier to buying things.

They must have either collected enough data to lower the value of collecting any more, or they have realized that people got over the novelty of asking Alexa to order more dog food.

My guess is the latter, because buying anything from Amazon now requires 15 minutes of research to make sure it's actually what you want and not at some ridiculous marked up price. I wouldn't trust Alexa to pick the best result on the first try.

[–] BarbecueCowboy 49 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Alexa has a tendency to give you the 'featured' product no matter how precisely and specifically you ask her for something. Even if you don't have to research and know exactly what you want, it's almost always easier to just go find your phone.

The real game changer for Alexa was always having a voice assistant that you can integrate with just about whatever you want that isn't tied to someone's phone. The idea of going into someone's house and just saying 'Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights' or 'Alexa, is it cold outside?' is where the Alexa magic lies, but Amazon never could figure out how to make that profitable on it's own, just doesn't contribute to the business case.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Amazon never could figure out how to make that profitable on it's own

They are so dumb. Every house could use their products, they just need to charge normal prices. Everyone has light switches in every room. Imagine if most new houses came with "Alexa" switches and electric plugs.

They tried to make money on a few hobbyists who could set it up for themselves. They needed to go after the construction market. Charge half of what they were charging and sell a ton to every house in America. It's not an iPhone. It's a basic device to turn on the lights.

[–] BarbecueCowboy 12 points 6 months ago

You're right that is a real loss. Really, an Alexa that didn't require a personalized amazon account could still be huge if they could figure out how not to have to justify the costs of running the servers. I think that unwillingness to let Alexa be just a voice assistant is the key roadblock. In a similar vein, Alexa for business could have been a really big deal too if they could have worked it out a bit faster but now I think interest has mostly died out before it had a chance to be adopted.

I'm not a huge fan of the company and I think it's a coin flip as to whether they would just completely screw it up, but I wonder what would have happened if someone like Crestron had taken a real interest instead of just half-assing an integration.

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[–] themeatbridge 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You're right, but the reason that hasn't caught on is that talking to your "smart" house is stupid. You can't possibly program every possible command or situation, and telling Alexa to dim the lights in your kitchen to 40% is slower than using a dimmer switch. Actual smart homes are automated to the point where you don't need to talk to your room.

[–] ocassionallyaduck 13 points 6 months ago (4 children)

This. Running Home Assistant on literally anything stronger than a raspberryPi means you can automate damn near anything. And yea, it might be a pain in the ass to setup, but once it's done it basically runs itself.

And it's infinitely, overwhelmingly better than than asking Google or Alexa to do any of it.

I have a bunch of wireless light switches all over the house, it's stupidly convenient once you stop thinking they have to be stuck in thy wall.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I’ve had a few Alexas over the past five years or so, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever used any of them to actually buy anything. They’re all glorified Bluetooth speakers for my phone.

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[–] mPony 16 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I wouldn’t trust Alexa

Trusting Alexa/Amazon is insane. It wasn't insane X years ago (your value of X will vary), but it definitely is insane now

[–] draughtcyclist 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

This is just it, it can barely handle manage my lighting system. How am I going to trust it to make purchases? Brought to you by the same people who can't keep fake reviews off their platform.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Between inserting ads into Amazon Video, scaling back on fast delivery, and this it looks like Amazon has maxed out their growth and are scaling back on their loss leaders that were used to get where they are.

[–] essteeyou 14 points 6 months ago (6 children)

For the first time in at least a decade of being a Prime member. I have set a reminder to cancel before it renews next time.

So many deliveries fail to be on time, I'm getting too many ads in my face when I use products I paid for (Fire TV auto-plays ads for content or cars or whatever now).

[–] GamingChairModel 11 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Don't set a reminder, just cancel now. If you cancel, you get the rest of the time you paid for and it just doesn't automatically review, so there's no penalty to canceling early versus right before the deadline.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

... and pushing ads on echo show devices.

[–] flop_leash_973 45 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn't be able to find a use for Alexa if they were paying me $10/month to use it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'd buy 2, start a neverending conversation going between them, and lock em away in the corner in the attic.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Make it three, call it The Ellipsis

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago (1 children)

With how garbage Alexa is now, there is no way in hell I'm paying them anything. I'd love a refund for the three useless dots I have now.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)

. . .

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago (10 children)

Home Assistant will always be free.

[–] thirteene 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Any recommendations for a voice tool? It felt like I would need to setup a room microphone on my orange pi when I was reading the docs.

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[–] bitchkat 37 points 6 months ago

Seeing as how I've never used it for free ...

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I wouldn't put one of those amazon spy devices in my house even if they paid me. There's no way in hell I'm going to pay to use one.

[–] MeekerThanBeaker 5 points 6 months ago

Eh ... it's not spying. It can't even understand me when I'm talking to it.

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[–] Pacattack57 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If my Alexa stopped working because it needed a subscription it’s going straight in the trash.

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[–] TheFeatureCreature 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This is going to flop.

A big appeal of assistant devices was the barrier to entry was extremely low. So low that they could be purchased in multiples and given as gifts and were easy for the recipients to set up and use. So low that Alexa integration was common on many types of devices at many pricepoints.

Setting one up and being asked to pay a monthly sub might not go so well. People are getting burnt out of constant subscriptions bleeding them dry. I really don't know how many would be willing to pay for something that was once free and was basically taken away from them.

~~this is also not including the growing amount of people that are goddamn sick and tired of hearing about AI constantly being shoved into everything~~

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[–] dirtySourdough 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Neat, lots more e-waste incoming

[–] demizerone 11 points 6 months ago

All the two alexas I own were given to me. Fuck no I am not paying $10 a month for a talking weather reporter.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I never used to understand why Picard and the crew got upset with Data's long winded explanations until I got a Google Home. Now I understand very well.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (12 children)

People don't want that shit for free... Why would they pay for it.

Just slap more ads on it, I don't know haha

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I bought the device (s), I use it to turn on/off my lights, ask it the time and date every now and then, everything it prompts me for is annoying as fuck. I'm not paying a monthly fee for a device that I purchased to do simple tasks that were included when I bought it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Based on what I've read, you can still do what you bought them for without paying the monthly fee. You just have to deal with the old dumb Alexa.

By the way...

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Two things:

  • our alexa units are fine. We manage a half-dozen bulbs and a set-top box.
  • if they want a subscription to keep doing that, HomeAssistant becomes the top job on the queue.

That's it.

[–] Crashumbc 8 points 6 months ago (2 children)

People are missing the point. This was ALWAYS the plan. Get Alexa in hundreds of thousands of homes and get everyone to used to using it. Than charge money.

Even if only a quarter of the users pay, they'll make a ton of money.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

I see you are using than when you should be using then.

  • Then is for time, similar to when. "Back then"
  • Than is for comparisons. "I have more than you"
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[–] Snapz 8 points 6 months ago

Using free users to train the paid version and then flipping the switch on enshitification of the "free" tier to force need for premium.

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