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It doesn't hurt that Google is practically giving them away. The Home Mini has been $20 several times (inc. black Friday), $80 for three at Costco, or nearly f

It doesn't hurt that Google is practically giving them away. The Home Mini has been $20 several times (inc. black Friday), $80 for three at Costco, or nearly free (e.g. spend $125 on Google Express right now and get one included). I paid only $64 for my Google Home for example (new from eBay). My point is, if you follow deal sites Google has had back to back sales almost since they launched. The $50/$130 prices for the Mini/Home respectively are largely fiction.

skinnymuch 8y ago
Yeah we have two Mini’s at home that came for free with different purchases. Same thing with a friend of mine. I would think that accounts for a good portion of them.
romaster 8y ago
Nothing wrong with sacrificing short term profit to meet a longer term objective. So yes, it doesn't hurt. In fact, it quite clearly helps a ton. Does that make them pound for pound competitive with one another? No of course not. But consumers are not necessarily buying one or the other on a price basis. Alexa got there earlier. Google has to do something to overcome that hurdle.. being practically free or getting stuffed into something else for free is a successful way to overcome.
- tozeur 8y ago
  But there’s no point in giving them away for free unless future value can be extracted from those devices. It’s not a service like Spotify where you’ll get a month free to demo/“get hooked” then start paying the a subscription fee. Maybe the value for Google is word of mouth advertising? Data collection to improve future versions?
  - lallysingh 8y ago
    This is a platform war. Largest installed base gets the most integrations. Then you add on ways to monetize the platform.
    - pvg 8y ago
      Integrations aren't nearly the barrier to entry apps are so it's not very platform-like in that sense.
      - lallysingh 8y ago
        That's exactly what they are. How well can you access your music library from the platform? Control your lights? Ask about the state of your car? Your thermostat? Your shopping account at Amazon? Access to the Google knowledge graph? Your Gmail inbox, with the inferred fight information and calendar data? Now imagine coming into this arena with none of those integrations. Your system can answer some questions about the weather. It can tell you that your Imap mail account has 3 new messages. Everything else, you've got to do the engineering work yourself to integrate, while Google and Amazon just publish APIs.
        pvg 8y ago
        They are just a lot less work (the platform provider does the bulk of it) so it's not that hard for third parties to support a couple of competing platforms. The barrier part is much less barrier-y than, say, desktop apps or smartphone apps. The space is also smaller and more constrained - nobody is going to invent an 'integration' as popular as, say, a snapchat.
        icebraining 8y ago
        For now most apps are pretty simple, but with better conversation skills (comprehension, keeping context, etc), developers might write some pretty advanced ones. And if one platform has infrastructure that can offload that and convert it into simple APIs, I can see it being a stronger lock-in than smartphone apps.
        lallysingh 8y ago
        Agreed. Let's remember how simple apps used to be in the first home computers. $5 on a single floppy, mostly to convert duplication costs. As the market developed, they got more sophisticated and became a larger moat.
  - losteric 8y ago
    The search data alone is valuable, even if they never advertise through the device.
- gnrlist 8y ago
  If this was Walmart's home speaker people would call their strategy predatory pricing, but since it's Google no one seems to care.
  - sidrajaram 8y ago
    Walmart competes with Mom and Pop grocery stores. Google is competing with god damn Amazon. And possibly future startups that might otherwise try to enter the smart speaker space, but decide not to because they can't compete at that price point. In which case, great...that is not a case of a large corporation leveraging their size/position to harm customers.
    - isolli 8y ago
      How can preventing competition be great? If innovative startups are prevented from entering the market because of predatory pricing, it does harm customers.
    - dastbe 8y ago
      (I work at Amazon) I think you could argue Walmart was primarily competing with mom and pop stores a decade ago (though really other large supermarkets at that point), but they are most certainly competing with amazon today.
  - sah2ed 8y ago
    Because human attention is scarce, it's infeasible for them to care until there is a real risk of such behavior becoming a problem. People would suddenly start to care if the entity enjoys a large enough market share to make them a monopoly.
hkmurakami 8y ago
Also there was at least one Home Mini giveaway in SF. The line literally wrapped around the block in Hayes Valley.
zitterbewegung 8y ago
The Apple Homepod puts it at a premium price with a digital assistant that people aren't really happy with. The Google Assitant wants people to buy it at cost or less. I think that Apple can have an assistant that will eventually be as good as Alexa / Google and then they would have a great speaker with a great digital assistant. Since I own Alexa's (and I developed an app on the platform) I don't see why I would buy a Google Assistant but I could see myself getting an Apple Homepod.
- gh02t 8y ago
  Don't forget Google has a competitor for the Homepod too, the Home Max. I'm a bit skeptical that either device will be especially successful, despite the fact that they have had positive reviews. Their price makes them a significantly more niche, and they have stiff competition from companies that are already established in that market segment (e.g. Sonos). Interestingly Amazon seems to be staying out of that end. I wonder if they are waiting it out - Echo was kind of a surprise success originally after all.
  - mkempe 8y ago
    The integration between Alexa and Sonos is great, so there is no need for Amazon to compete with Sonos speakers.
romanovcode 8y ago
Yeah, they also give their mobile OS for free (Android), and a lot of other things for free. It's amazing. \s You're the product. They sell everything you say, the microphone never turns off.

skinnymuch 8y ago

Yeah we have two Mini’s at home that came for free with different purchases. Same thing with a friend of mine. I would think that accounts for a good portion of them.

romaster 8y ago

Nothing wrong with sacrificing short term profit to meet a longer term objective. So yes, it doesn't hurt. In fact, it quite clearly helps a ton. Does that make them pound for pound competitive with one another? No of course not. But consumers are not necessarily buying one or the other on a price basis. Alexa got there earlier. Google has to do something to overcome that hurdle.. being practically free or getting stuffed into something else for free is a successful way to overcome.

tozeur 8y ago
But there’s no point in giving them away for free unless future value can be extracted from those devices. It’s not a service like Spotify where you’ll get a month free to demo/“get hooked” then start paying the a subscription fee. Maybe the value for Google is word of mouth advertising? Data collection to improve future versions?
- lallysingh 8y ago
  This is a platform war. Largest installed base gets the most integrations. Then you add on ways to monetize the platform.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Integrations aren't nearly the barrier to entry apps are so it's not very platform-like in that sense.
    - lallysingh 8y ago
      That's exactly what they are. How well can you access your music library from the platform? Control your lights? Ask about the state of your car? Your thermostat? Your shopping account at Amazon? Access to the Google knowledge graph? Your Gmail inbox, with the inferred fight information and calendar data? Now imagine coming into this arena with none of those integrations. Your system can answer some questions about the weather. It can tell you that your Imap mail account has 3 new messages. Everything else, you've got to do the engineering work yourself to integrate, while Google and Amazon just publish APIs.
      - pvg 8y ago
        They are just a lot less work (the platform provider does the bulk of it) so it's not that hard for third parties to support a couple of competing platforms. The barrier part is much less barrier-y than, say, desktop apps or smartphone apps. The space is also smaller and more constrained - nobody is going to invent an 'integration' as popular as, say, a snapchat.
        icebraining 8y ago
        For now most apps are pretty simple, but with better conversation skills (comprehension, keeping context, etc), developers might write some pretty advanced ones. And if one platform has infrastructure that can offload that and convert it into simple APIs, I can see it being a stronger lock-in than smartphone apps.
        lallysingh 8y ago
        Agreed. Let's remember how simple apps used to be in the first home computers. $5 on a single floppy, mostly to convert duplication costs. As the market developed, they got more sophisticated and became a larger moat.
- losteric 8y ago
  The search data alone is valuable, even if they never advertise through the device.
gnrlist 8y ago
If this was Walmart's home speaker people would call their strategy predatory pricing, but since it's Google no one seems to care.
- sidrajaram 8y ago
  Walmart competes with Mom and Pop grocery stores. Google is competing with god damn Amazon. And possibly future startups that might otherwise try to enter the smart speaker space, but decide not to because they can't compete at that price point. In which case, great...that is not a case of a large corporation leveraging their size/position to harm customers.
  - isolli 8y ago
    How can preventing competition be great? If innovative startups are prevented from entering the market because of predatory pricing, it does harm customers.
  - dastbe 8y ago
    (I work at Amazon) I think you could argue Walmart was primarily competing with mom and pop stores a decade ago (though really other large supermarkets at that point), but they are most certainly competing with amazon today.
- sah2ed 8y ago
  Because human attention is scarce, it's infeasible for them to care until there is a real risk of such behavior becoming a problem. People would suddenly start to care if the entity enjoys a large enough market share to make them a monopoly.

hkmurakami 8y ago

Also there was at least one Home Mini giveaway in SF. The line literally wrapped around the block in Hayes Valley.

zitterbewegung 8y ago

The Apple Homepod puts it at a premium price with a digital assistant that people aren't really happy with. The Google Assitant wants people to buy it at cost or less. I think that Apple can have an assistant that will eventually be as good as Alexa / Google and then they would have a great speaker with a great digital assistant. Since I own Alexa's (and I developed an app on the platform) I don't see why I would buy a Google Assistant but I could see myself getting an Apple Homepod.

gh02t 8y ago
Don't forget Google has a competitor for the Homepod too, the Home Max. I'm a bit skeptical that either device will be especially successful, despite the fact that they have had positive reviews. Their price makes them a significantly more niche, and they have stiff competition from companies that are already established in that market segment (e.g. Sonos). Interestingly Amazon seems to be staying out of that end. I wonder if they are waiting it out - Echo was kind of a surprise success originally after all.
- mkempe 8y ago
  The integration between Alexa and Sonos is great, so there is no need for Amazon to compete with Sonos speakers.

romanovcode 8y ago

Yeah, they also give their mobile OS for free (Android), and a lot of other things for free. It's amazing. \s You're the product. They sell everything you say, the microphone never turns off.