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I had an annoying experience attempting to play white noise on an echo speaker for the kids recently: Alexa wouldn't play white noise without an Amazon music pr

I had an annoying experience attempting to play white noise on an echo speaker for the kids recently: Alexa wouldn't play white noise without an Amazon music premium account. It kept prompting me to pay for the premium service. Granted I'm pretty sure I can get it to play white noise on a different music service but I think it's ridiculous that they would charge for noise.

PenguinCoder 4y ago
Under capitalism, anything they can extract money for, they will.
- prepend 4y ago
  I mean, this applies under all other economic systems too. I think no system removes human or organizational greed. So your comment seems odd to me. What other economic systems would prevent app makers from extracting as much money as they possibly can?
  - iaaan 4y ago
    Systems that don't use money? Systems with a lot of regulations? Use your imagination.
    - prepend 4y ago
      What systems don’t use money? What systems regulate the types of apps on phones and PCs? I’m using my imagination but outside of Star Trek and other sci-fi, I’m drawing a blank. Are there any present day, earth economic systems that would result in a different outcome? BTW, Spotify is Swedish and they are closer to socialism than capitalism. So the comment I replied to would be as accurate it it said “humans” or something instead of capitalist.
      - skinnymuch 4y ago
        Social safety nets in a capitalist society don’t make a country closer to socialism. Same with decent worker rights. Neoliberalism has done a huge shift into pushing the world towards capitalism. I don’t think the state needs to own the means of production to be socialist. At the very least 50% of private companies should be co-ops to be called more socialist than capitalist.
honkler 4y ago
you bought alexa, what else did you expect?
timrichard 4y ago
I use noise before sleeping due to some mild tinnitus. I tried the Alexa/Spotify approach for a while, but didn't like the gaps between the tracks or anything else that would make me take notice of the background sound. I ended up repurposing an old Android tablet hooked up to a cheap USB powered speaker bar through the headphone jack of the tablet. It runs the White Noise app, and I go for sea/waves types of sound. I keep the tablet offline in airplane mode with a very short display-off setting. The sound can loop continuously, or you can set it to switch off after a certain time. It's been really great every night for the last few years. I did research some sort of sleep machine box on Amazon, but it's surprisingly difficult to find something that doesn't want to shine bright status LEDs into your darkened bedroom, or other annoying things.

PenguinCoder 4y ago

Under capitalism, anything they can extract money for, they will.

prepend 4y ago
I mean, this applies under all other economic systems too. I think no system removes human or organizational greed. So your comment seems odd to me. What other economic systems would prevent app makers from extracting as much money as they possibly can?
- iaaan 4y ago
  Systems that don't use money? Systems with a lot of regulations? Use your imagination.
  - prepend 4y ago
    What systems don’t use money? What systems regulate the types of apps on phones and PCs? I’m using my imagination but outside of Star Trek and other sci-fi, I’m drawing a blank. Are there any present day, earth economic systems that would result in a different outcome? BTW, Spotify is Swedish and they are closer to socialism than capitalism. So the comment I replied to would be as accurate it it said “humans” or something instead of capitalist.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Social safety nets in a capitalist society don’t make a country closer to socialism. Same with decent worker rights. Neoliberalism has done a huge shift into pushing the world towards capitalism. I don’t think the state needs to own the means of production to be socialist. At the very least 50% of private companies should be co-ops to be called more socialist than capitalist.

honkler 4y ago

you bought alexa, what else did you expect?

timrichard 4y ago

I use noise before sleeping due to some mild tinnitus. I tried the Alexa/Spotify approach for a while, but didn't like the gaps between the tracks or anything else that would make me take notice of the background sound. I ended up repurposing an old Android tablet hooked up to a cheap USB powered speaker bar through the headphone jack of the tablet. It runs the White Noise app, and I go for sea/waves types of sound. I keep the tablet offline in airplane mode with a very short display-off setting. The sound can loop continuously, or you can set it to switch off after a certain time. It's been really great every night for the last few years. I did research some sort of sleep machine box on Amazon, but it's surprisingly difficult to find something that doesn't want to shine bright status LEDs into your darkened bedroom, or other annoying things.