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I've said it before and I'll say it again: Amazon builds things like this (their phone, their tablets, Alexa, and apparently their social media platform) based

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Amazon builds things like this (their phone, their tablets, Alexa, and apparently their social media platform) based on what Amazon wishes were true, not what actually is. Amazon wishes people built their daily lives around shopping at Amazon and would share that with their friends. Amazon wishes people wanted to take pictures of products so you could buy them from Amazon (this was one of the "innovative" features of the Fire Phone, it was called Firefly, and I never used it once in the year or so that I used that generally awful phone). It's like they start from the premise of, "Sell more stuff!", and then build products around that. Anything else that gets into the mix is just a flashy gimmick to get you into the store. There have been Amazon products that have succeeded, obviously, since they're bigger than god and still growing (and I shop there all the time, and use/like AWS). But, boy, do they suck at consumer technology.

camtarn 9y ago
Yeah, so much this. There's a very sound principle within Amazon that one should "work backwards from the customer": pitch ideas for new products based on identifying a clear customer need, then inventing a product that will fulfil that. But a lot of the pitches I saw were essentially working backwards from sales targets or existing tech - first, invent a customer with an insatiable desire to buy stuff in inexplicably odd ways ("I want to buy stuff by scanning it with my phone!") then invent a product to do that. The Fire Phone was probably the biggest example of this. I think it just started as somebody deciding that Amazon needed a phone, to drive sales like Android drove web use, and then they chucked in all sort of flashy tech that they happened to have on hand. Such a gigantic pile of WTF. At least the tablets started out with the idea that people were buying Kindles, listening to Amazon MP3, and watching Amazon Video, and perhaps somebody might want to combine all three in one device. The first Fire tablet was a shoddy pile of minimal-viable-product, but the later ones were fairly nice.
hbosch 9y ago
> (their phone, their tablets, Alexa, and apparently their social media platform) Obviously with the exclusion of the phone, I'm under the impression that Fire TV and Fire Tablets sell pretty well. I know lots of parents who use Fire Tablets for their kids over iPads because they are cheap and the content restriction is really easy. Also, aren't Echo/Alexa-driven products pretty much thriving?
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  Yeah, well, some people do base their lives on shopping at Amazon, so there's a market there. It's just not as big as it could be. I mean, my prior comment was somewhat limited in nuance. Sure the Kindle tablets are reportedly well-liked, but they're most well-liked by people who buy everything from Amazon. The thing is, I have a lot of this stuff I'm making fun of. I have a Fire TV Stick, I have a Kindle (the old-fashioned kind with an e-ink display), I had a Fire phone. But, I recognize that they are Amazon service delivery platforms. They exist to sell me products from Amazon. It's all part of a big ecosystem where lots of little frictions are removed from my life if I buy from Amazon. In addition to the devices, I have Prime, I have an Amazon Visa card (5% cash back on purchases from Amazon), I've bought a bunch of music from Amazon (and can have it all stored on Amazon when I change devices without having to remember where I bought it from or deal with weird download limits or whatever), etc. I'm making fun of myself here, basically, because I'm the ridiculous and stupid consumer that Amazon is building all the their ridiculous and stupid consumer products for. But, even I saw through the bullshit that was the Fire phone and found it absolutely ridiculous. And, I have a Nexus tablet and no interest in a Fire tablet, even at a better price than competing Android devices. The value proposition from a standard Android device with the Google apps is higher for me in phones and tablets. I won't likely fall for another Amazon produced phone or tablet. And, I haven't yet seen a compelling reason to invite Alexa into my home.

camtarn 9y ago

Yeah, so much this. There's a very sound principle within Amazon that one should "work backwards from the customer": pitch ideas for new products based on identifying a clear customer need, then inventing a product that will fulfil that. But a lot of the pitches I saw were essentially working backwards from sales targets or existing tech - first, invent a customer with an insatiable desire to buy stuff in inexplicably odd ways ("I want to buy stuff by scanning it with my phone!") then invent a product to do that. The Fire Phone was probably the biggest example of this. I think it just started as somebody deciding that Amazon needed a phone, to drive sales like Android drove web use, and then they chucked in all sort of flashy tech that they happened to have on hand. Such a gigantic pile of WTF. At least the tablets started out with the idea that people were buying Kindles, listening to Amazon MP3, and watching Amazon Video, and perhaps somebody might want to combine all three in one device. The first Fire tablet was a shoddy pile of minimal-viable-product, but the later ones were fairly nice.

hbosch 9y ago

> (their phone, their tablets, Alexa, and apparently their social media platform) Obviously with the exclusion of the phone, I'm under the impression that Fire TV and Fire Tablets sell pretty well. I know lots of parents who use Fire Tablets for their kids over iPads because they are cheap and the content restriction is really easy. Also, aren't Echo/Alexa-driven products pretty much thriving?

SwellJoe 9y ago
Yeah, well, some people do base their lives on shopping at Amazon, so there's a market there. It's just not as big as it could be. I mean, my prior comment was somewhat limited in nuance. Sure the Kindle tablets are reportedly well-liked, but they're most well-liked by people who buy everything from Amazon. The thing is, I have a lot of this stuff I'm making fun of. I have a Fire TV Stick, I have a Kindle (the old-fashioned kind with an e-ink display), I had a Fire phone. But, I recognize that they are Amazon service delivery platforms. They exist to sell me products from Amazon. It's all part of a big ecosystem where lots of little frictions are removed from my life if I buy from Amazon. In addition to the devices, I have Prime, I have an Amazon Visa card (5% cash back on purchases from Amazon), I've bought a bunch of music from Amazon (and can have it all stored on Amazon when I change devices without having to remember where I bought it from or deal with weird download limits or whatever), etc. I'm making fun of myself here, basically, because I'm the ridiculous and stupid consumer that Amazon is building all the their ridiculous and stupid consumer products for. But, even I saw through the bullshit that was the Fire phone and found it absolutely ridiculous. And, I have a Nexus tablet and no interest in a Fire tablet, even at a better price than competing Android devices. The value proposition from a standard Android device with the Google apps is higher for me in phones and tablets. I won't likely fall for another Amazon produced phone or tablet. And, I haven't yet seen a compelling reason to invite Alexa into my home.