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By that logic Alexa can't lose Amazon any money because it's baked into their products. But in fact, it's a massive money suck. It lost $10B last year, and ther

By that logic Alexa can't lose Amazon any money because it's baked into their products. But in fact, it's a massive money suck. It lost $10B last year, and there's no way you can say Apple magically avoided losses, because Google had similar losses. There is a reason that none of the assistants have really improved as much as you'd expect over a decade+, it's not profitable, and not only that, but it's also -extremely- expensive. Microsoft basically just gave up on it; not really because of market share, but because it made no money, was expensive, and had limited value to customers. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-colossal-failure-on-pace-to-lose-10-billion-this-year/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/report-google-doubles-down-on-pixel-hardware-cuts-google-assistant-support/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/report-google-double... https://www.theverge.com/22704233/siri-apple-digital-assistant-10-years-development-problems-why https://www.theverge.com/22704233/siri-apple-digital-assista... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-failure-of-amazon-s-alexa-shows-microsoft-was-right-to-kill-cortana/ar-AA14Q6eE https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-failure-of-ama...

scarface74 4y ago
How hard do you really think it is to build intents into something like Siri once you have the underlying technology framework? Yes I have experience building intents on top of something like Siri.
- supermatt 4y ago
  It’s not the complexity of building intents that costs the money. Near real-time speech inference at scale doesn’t come for free. It’s only very recently that has started moving to the edge.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Speech inference has been done well enough locally for well over a decade. While an Alexa device probably couldn’t do it, any modern iPhone could.
    - supermatt 4y ago
      > Speech inference has been done well enough locally for well over a decade The first Alexa device was released in March 2014 - almost 9 years ago. Siri was a couple of years before that. > While an Alexa device probably couldn’t do it, any modern iPhone could. And that is why it is done in the cloud and has only recently started moving to the edge.
criddell 4y ago
If the Echo devices were wildly profitable, earning $100+ billion per year, then I would say Alexa isn't losing money for Amazon.
- partiallypro 4y ago
  Siri is not why people are buying iPhones, in fact well over 50% of users say they never or rarely use it. So, your point doesn't really hold up. Siri still loses money, just like Google Assistant and Alexa. The apps you listed to compare with OS bundles have not even close to the same overhead as a digital assistant and can be handled with relatively small programming teams.
  - MatthiasPortzel 4y ago
    Apple is selling HomePods and iPhones for a profit. But Amazon is/was selling Echos for a loss, in the hope that they would drive additional Prime music subscriptions and lower friction to Amazon purchases. That didn’t happen, and so the product line all-devices-sold-with-Alexa has lost Amazon money. The equivalent comparison, all devices with Siri, has made Apple a ton of money.
    - cool_dude85 4y ago
      Without examining internal Amazon or Apple data on the marginal sales increase estimates for Siri/Alexa it's impossible to say, though. Apple has earned a lot of money on devices with Siri included. Microsoft has made a lot of money on OSes with Minesweeper included. It would be wrong to conclude anything about the profitability of Minesweeper based on that fact, just as it is wrong to conclude anything about the profitability of Siri based on the equivalent fact from Apple.
    - partiallypro 4y ago
      Apple's HomePods have been a resounding failure though? I don't know where you're getting your data, but it's wrong. They literally discontinued the original model because sales were SO bad.

scarface74 4y ago

How hard do you really think it is to build intents into something like Siri once you have the underlying technology framework? Yes I have experience building intents on top of something like Siri.

supermatt 4y ago
It’s not the complexity of building intents that costs the money. Near real-time speech inference at scale doesn’t come for free. It’s only very recently that has started moving to the edge.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Speech inference has been done well enough locally for well over a decade. While an Alexa device probably couldn’t do it, any modern iPhone could.
  - supermatt 4y ago
    > Speech inference has been done well enough locally for well over a decade The first Alexa device was released in March 2014 - almost 9 years ago. Siri was a couple of years before that. > While an Alexa device probably couldn’t do it, any modern iPhone could. And that is why it is done in the cloud and has only recently started moving to the edge.

criddell 4y ago

If the Echo devices were wildly profitable, earning $100+ billion per year, then I would say Alexa isn't losing money for Amazon.

partiallypro 4y ago
Siri is not why people are buying iPhones, in fact well over 50% of users say they never or rarely use it. So, your point doesn't really hold up. Siri still loses money, just like Google Assistant and Alexa. The apps you listed to compare with OS bundles have not even close to the same overhead as a digital assistant and can be handled with relatively small programming teams.
- MatthiasPortzel 4y ago
  Apple is selling HomePods and iPhones for a profit. But Amazon is/was selling Echos for a loss, in the hope that they would drive additional Prime music subscriptions and lower friction to Amazon purchases. That didn’t happen, and so the product line all-devices-sold-with-Alexa has lost Amazon money. The equivalent comparison, all devices with Siri, has made Apple a ton of money.
  - cool_dude85 4y ago
    Without examining internal Amazon or Apple data on the marginal sales increase estimates for Siri/Alexa it's impossible to say, though. Apple has earned a lot of money on devices with Siri included. Microsoft has made a lot of money on OSes with Minesweeper included. It would be wrong to conclude anything about the profitability of Minesweeper based on that fact, just as it is wrong to conclude anything about the profitability of Siri based on the equivalent fact from Apple.
  - partiallypro 4y ago
    Apple's HomePods have been a resounding failure though? I don't know where you're getting your data, but it's wrong. They literally discontinued the original model because sales were SO bad.