Amazon recently locked some of Alexa's Guard security features behind a paywall.
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Amazon wants to charge a subscription fee for Alexa eventually
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The universal experience with all of these digital assistants is they have decayed in functionality and gotten notably worse over time.
Amazon is out of their damn minds if they think people are going to shell out another subscription fee to keep using them.
Amazon is out of their damn minds if they think people are going to shell out another subscription fee to keep using them.
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Like I'm going to put physical security into the digital realm. They're literally insane. That screenshot is just ludicrous.
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Any friction in a voice assistant destroys their utility. The constant "by the way, did you know I can x" and other unwanted announcements are bad enough. Making someone pay for core use cases is going to be a nonstarter at this point. If they wanted that they needed to set that expectation when it first launched, the horse is out of the barn on this one
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Hahahahahahaha. Oh wait you're serious. Let me laugh even harder. AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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I use the Alexa I was gifted as a speaker. That's it. There's nothing else I really want it to do that I trust.
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If they don't charge for these features, I'm safe with the free product forever:
"Alexa, turn on xyz light"
Routine: "turn on/off xyz device at abc time"
"Alexa, what time is it?"
"Alexa, what is the current weather?"
That is literally the sum total of my use for Alexa. I like the solution for these things, but really, I have no use for any of the rest of what they want shove down our throats.. I've read that there are some open source far-field mic home automation solutions coming, and I'd be interested to switch, when they reach feature parity with the above! (I'd welcome info on these projects, if anyone has any).
I suspect that many consumers use Alexa about the same way that I do (and maybe many use timers too). Which points to the problem with their business model: they were hoping to inject ads or purchasing into the voice ecosystem, and no one wants that. I'll be curious what kind of capabilities they add to the subscription models to (try to) get people to pay. But if they don't wall off core functionality behind a paywall, I suspect most consumers, like me, will just get by with a pretty effective voice recognition technology plus some simple automation tools..
Edit: minor additional thoughts
"Alexa, turn on xyz light"
Routine: "turn on/off xyz device at abc time"
"Alexa, what time is it?"
"Alexa, what is the current weather?"
That is literally the sum total of my use for Alexa. I like the solution for these things, but really, I have no use for any of the rest of what they want shove down our throats.. I've read that there are some open source far-field mic home automation solutions coming, and I'd be interested to switch, when they reach feature parity with the above! (I'd welcome info on these projects, if anyone has any).
I suspect that many consumers use Alexa about the same way that I do (and maybe many use timers too). Which points to the problem with their business model: they were hoping to inject ads or purchasing into the voice ecosystem, and no one wants that. I'll be curious what kind of capabilities they add to the subscription models to (try to) get people to pay. But if they don't wall off core functionality behind a paywall, I suspect most consumers, like me, will just get by with a pretty effective voice recognition technology plus some simple automation tools..
Edit: minor additional thoughts
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ColdWetDog
Ars Legatus Legionis
Not explicit in The Fine Demo is that you will have to have all of your house windows, doors and whatnot tied to Alexa, err Amazon.
Pull the other one....
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That means I'll need to accelerate my light control over to Home Assistant, then.
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As someone that has several echo because I got them for free or close to that in trade-in these people are delusional.
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I suspect that someday a company will come along and offer products and service with real privacy and trust. They're going to make a fortune.
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I generally support a business model wherein I exchange a known quantity of money with a vendor for a good or service! We went way off the rails there for a couple of decades.
Two problems: 1) the value I get out of voice assistants is close to zero, 2) I have very little faith that paying Amazon money for Alexa would meaningfully reduce how much data they may be scraping. Put another way, I would consider a subscription instead of scraping, but I am not interested in a subscription added to scraping.
Two problems: 1) the value I get out of voice assistants is close to zero, 2) I have very little faith that paying Amazon money for Alexa would meaningfully reduce how much data they may be scraping. Put another way, I would consider a subscription instead of scraping, but I am not interested in a subscription added to scraping.
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Coming soon: Ads on Alexa (or are they already there? I don't use Alexa/Siri/whatever).
Coming not too long after that: Subscription that removes the ads
Coming right after that: Ads on the subscription service
Coming not too long after that: Subscription that removes the ads
Coming right after that: Ads on the subscription service
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These assistants are all crap and it isn't even a technology problem. Their integrations across the board are piss poor. They can't do basic shit you'd think they could do in 2023. There's been essentially no product improvements in a decade. None of the assistants actually fucking ASSIST with my daily needs.
And asking for the weather and toggling the lights doesn't count. Hell the second can be accomplished with a fucking Clapper.
As an example with Google's assistant, you can be driving with Maps and you can't even say, "hey Google, add a stop for a gas station to this route." There is no machine learning comprehension problem here! Just absolutely NO product sense whatsoever.
And all of them even collect all the shit we say so they literally know what people want the devices to do! They don't even need to ask customers! And they STILL haven't done anything remotely interesting??
Almost like it was never about consumer satisfaction and all a ruse to sell products via Amazon...except the shopping experience with Alexa is crap. A key attraction to Amazon was always having many more options than a store. If I tell Alexa "order more laundry detergent" and my only option is Tide Mountain Fresh or some shit because Amazon has a deal with Proctor & Gamble, why am I using Amazon at all?
And asking for the weather and toggling the lights doesn't count. Hell the second can be accomplished with a fucking Clapper.
As an example with Google's assistant, you can be driving with Maps and you can't even say, "hey Google, add a stop for a gas station to this route." There is no machine learning comprehension problem here! Just absolutely NO product sense whatsoever.
And all of them even collect all the shit we say so they literally know what people want the devices to do! They don't even need to ask customers! And they STILL haven't done anything remotely interesting??
Almost like it was never about consumer satisfaction and all a ruse to sell products via Amazon...except the shopping experience with Alexa is crap. A key attraction to Amazon was always having many more options than a store. If I tell Alexa "order more laundry detergent" and my only option is Tide Mountain Fresh or some shit because Amazon has a deal with Proctor & Gamble, why am I using Amazon at all?
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I was also given one. This is the only gift in my memory where I did decline (as politely as I could). Absolutely never having that in my house. Never ever.
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I got an echo when it was first released. Amazon has had almost a decade to impress me with Alexa and failed. I use it to get a news summary, turn on and off a light, and -- once in a while -- listen to a radio station. I'm now getting sick of "Did you know..." so I guess I also tell it to "Stop!" pretty often.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
I can’t think of anything I’d like less in my Alexa devices than AI. They would have to pay ME to interact with it on a regular basis. I actually like having Alexa devices in my house. But they keep making the product worse, and half-assed AI is much, much worse. Hell, there’s a genuine use-case for AI in Microsoft Office, where people can actually use help with writing. And even that has become so overly insistent it makes life (and the product) much worse. What the fuck is so wrong with just making a product that’s good and charging appropriately for it?
If anything, Amazon needs to NARROW the scope of their devices. The hardware and the software.
If anything, Amazon needs to NARROW the scope of their devices. The hardware and the software.
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Yeah, not sure if the mics have gone bad or what, but our Echos have gotten noticeably worse at recognizing simple voice commands like turning the lights on and off.
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That sounds reasonable except for how they're harvesting your data and using it for their profit. They should be paying YOU.
You're also making the assumption that Amazon is being honest about the cost of the business in the first place. What makes you think they're not lying to you? They've done it many times in the past. The have lied about what Alexa collects, what they store, and who has access to it.
And you're happy to litter your home with them and then PAY AMAZON for them??
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Clippy: Hi, it looks like you want to write a letter, do you need any help?
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The voice assistant ‘market‘ shows (again) that real life doesn’t work like sci-fi. People don’t really want to have conversations with computers.
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Cameras pointing at doors windows etc. are a great way to confirm that they're actually locked and closed.
As for Alexa. lol. You want me to pay a subscription for an egg timer? Fuck off.
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Well l will add my voice to the growing chorus that say's nope, not gonna do it.
As another post pointed out, most times Alexa is a glorified timer and light controller (turn on the desk lamp please, I add the please just in case ;-) )
that is NOT worth paying for other then the original echo dot cost.
this also applies to Prime. Like others I've noticed the advantage in two day delivery has not been consistent (though the page tells me so) and I am starting to see other options for buying the same things. If I am already getting cheap China knock offs I could do Temu, but now I seem to find many eStores have equal pricing with Amazon AND free shipping, just not two day...
When they change Prime Video I will drop that, keep paramount for Star Trek stuff and play chrun the streams if there is a need.
To big to fail? Maybe not.
As another post pointed out, most times Alexa is a glorified timer and light controller (turn on the desk lamp please, I add the please just in case ;-) )
that is NOT worth paying for other then the original echo dot cost.
this also applies to Prime. Like others I've noticed the advantage in two day delivery has not been consistent (though the page tells me so) and I am starting to see other options for buying the same things. If I am already getting cheap China knock offs I could do Temu, but now I seem to find many eStores have equal pricing with Amazon AND free shipping, just not two day...
When they change Prime Video I will drop that, keep paramount for Star Trek stuff and play chrun the streams if there is a need.
To big to fail? Maybe not.
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I can't wait to pay people to run shady analytics on my most private conversations!
I can't do it now, either.
I can't do it now, either.
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I'd be happy to have a "conversation" with a computer that was actually smart. From sci-fi this would be the Enterprise computer from TNG. ChatGPT is actually eerily similar and people don't mind having a "conversation" with that. People actually get something out of the interactions, they yield useful information.
On the other hand Alexa, Siri, etc are just dumb as a bag of hammers.
Edit: just noticed Amazon meant conversation as in "thoughts and opinions." Whoever came up with that is dumber than Alexa.
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