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After timers, the #1 use of Alexa in my house: 'make a fart noise'. We've tried to use Alexa for some games, like Jeopardy or Whose Line Is It Anyway, but it a

After timers, the #1 use of Alexa in my house: 'make a fart noise'. We've tried to use Alexa for some games, like Jeopardy or Whose Line Is It Anyway, but it always is an incredibly buggy experience. Even just simple multiple choice games should work perfectly, and yet, a lot of the time even basic answers don't register, and the games themselves crash. I've always wondered - stupid mobile games are dominating video games in terms of money right now. Voice platforms seem like they could do something similar, but all the platforms want to be your shopping AI or whatever. Just seems like the two worlds - voice platform and game developers - just could never get together and figure things out.

klenwell 4y ago
Have you tried this game? https://playheyrobot.com/rules https://playheyrobot.com/rules
ceedan 4y ago
All we do is ask it what the weather is going to be today, tonight, tomorrow
Nursie 4y ago
Not far off here - 1. cooking timers 2. fart noises 3. add X to my shopping list (used when shopping in a physical store) 4. Weather forecast 5. Turn off the tv That's enough that I'm happy 'she' was built into our tv sound bar, but yeah, I don't think alexa is making any money from me.
- russfink 4y ago
  When we first got ours years ago, I tried a bunch of apps. In a very short time, I became frustrated with the apps, and therefore adjusted my expectations of the device. Now, all I use it for is playing songs, adding items to the shopping list, printing the shopping list, asking where my orders are, playing the morning briefing, and occasionally asking it to solve a small computation. I think that everyone on here, that is like you and me, is that way because we have trimmed down our expectations over time due to poor implementation.
edgyquant 4y ago
This is the result of a propped up economy avoiding recessions at all cost. These large conglomerates are completely out of touch and money has been so cheap they were not really competing for or providing good services.
- thehappypm 4y ago
  Why does everyone have an obsession with “cheap money”? You still need to pay a loan back, can reduced interest on a loan really prop up a company up? I feel like that vastly overstates the impact of interest costs on business’s bottom lines
  - nathanasmith 4y ago
    Cheap money makes marginal investments more likely to be profitable.
  - genewitch 4y ago
    "cheap money" lets you buy users. Netflix "allowed" people not paying the bill to use netflix accounts of those who did, Amazon sold devices at cost to get market share, uber et al hemorrhaged money to become ubiquitous as "taxi", and so on. When money isn't cheap anymore, and you have to start showing a profit to get more money, the screws turn and users get squeezed. Merely showing a profit doesn't mean anything if you can't afford to do R&D without funding. Or, for a manufacturing perspective, your factory turns a profit, but you need to borrow money to buy a million dollar machine. The more it costs to borrow that money, the worse it gets for your customers - either because you use the older machines and make inferior product, or you have to raise your prices so the loan doesn't eat in to your profits as much.
    - thehappypm 4y ago
      This doesn’t really answer the question though. Netflix for example has a lot of costs — servers, payroll, content creation, licensing, etc. Interest is one cost, but hardly the whole picture of them. How exactly does Netflix’s interest costs going up mean their business model fails? Does it mean they must charge $10.50 instead of $10 per user?

klenwell 4y ago

Have you tried this game? https://playheyrobot.com/rules https://playheyrobot.com/rules

ceedan 4y ago

All we do is ask it what the weather is going to be today, tonight, tomorrow

Nursie 4y ago

Not far off here - 1. cooking timers 2. fart noises 3. add X to my shopping list (used when shopping in a physical store) 4. Weather forecast 5. Turn off the tv That's enough that I'm happy 'she' was built into our tv sound bar, but yeah, I don't think alexa is making any money from me.

russfink 4y ago
When we first got ours years ago, I tried a bunch of apps. In a very short time, I became frustrated with the apps, and therefore adjusted my expectations of the device. Now, all I use it for is playing songs, adding items to the shopping list, printing the shopping list, asking where my orders are, playing the morning briefing, and occasionally asking it to solve a small computation. I think that everyone on here, that is like you and me, is that way because we have trimmed down our expectations over time due to poor implementation.

edgyquant 4y ago

This is the result of a propped up economy avoiding recessions at all cost. These large conglomerates are completely out of touch and money has been so cheap they were not really competing for or providing good services.

thehappypm 4y ago
Why does everyone have an obsession with “cheap money”? You still need to pay a loan back, can reduced interest on a loan really prop up a company up? I feel like that vastly overstates the impact of interest costs on business’s bottom lines
- nathanasmith 4y ago
  Cheap money makes marginal investments more likely to be profitable.
- genewitch 4y ago
  "cheap money" lets you buy users. Netflix "allowed" people not paying the bill to use netflix accounts of those who did, Amazon sold devices at cost to get market share, uber et al hemorrhaged money to become ubiquitous as "taxi", and so on. When money isn't cheap anymore, and you have to start showing a profit to get more money, the screws turn and users get squeezed. Merely showing a profit doesn't mean anything if you can't afford to do R&D without funding. Or, for a manufacturing perspective, your factory turns a profit, but you need to borrow money to buy a million dollar machine. The more it costs to borrow that money, the worse it gets for your customers - either because you use the older machines and make inferior product, or you have to raise your prices so the loan doesn't eat in to your profits as much.
  - thehappypm 4y ago
    This doesn’t really answer the question though. Netflix for example has a lot of costs — servers, payroll, content creation, licensing, etc. Interest is one cost, but hardly the whole picture of them. How exactly does Netflix’s interest costs going up mean their business model fails? Does it mean they must charge $10.50 instead of $10 per user?