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I worked at Alexa. I'm not surprised by the massive loss - R&D was substantial, and nobody will ever be comfortable buying via voice (I own multiple Echo device
by laidoffamazon 4y ago
I worked at Alexa. I'm not surprised by the massive loss - R&D was substantial, and nobody will ever be comfortable buying via voice (I own multiple Echo devices, use them extremely frequently, but disabled voice purchasing the first day I set them up). I did see multiple attempts at alternative monetization, like special voices via neural TTS translation (which work awesome by the way) but the price point will never come close to recouping even the trained model GPU investment I'd bet.
Ambient intelligence is science fiction level cool - especially if it follows you around throughout multiple contexts like Alexa does - but if Amazon's not willing to take the hit on it this halting further inflow seems like a prudent move.
- geoelectric 4y agoI actually reorder consumables I've purchased before by voice all the time (e.g. Alexa, order more cat litter) since Alexa is very good at that one particular thing and has an efficient flow for it. I keep a PIN on it, of course, re: comfort. I cannot imagine actually shopping with one, mind you.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- snake_doc 4y agoIn addition to the R&D, the average Amazon Device (Echo, FireTV, Fire Tablet, Kindle) is sold at a loss. Amazon doesn’t make a gross profit on their main branded devices. Ring, eero, blink are slightly different. Kindle is the closest to break even.
- rajnathani 4y agoThe R&D budget for TTS would help overlap for AWS Polly though. Same for other AWS/Amazon products.