Amazon Alexa is a “colossal failure,” on pace to lose $10 billion this year
Layoffs reportedly hit the Alexa team hard as the company’s biggest money loser.
arstechnica.com
"Alexa is a colossal failure"
- Thread starter SpacemanSpiff
- Start date
arstechnica.com
The biggest piece of junk to be created for mankind - in the beginning it was warm welcome, but its really the boundaries of being annoying. Everyone is entitled to privacy 
Well, I will be the odd ball here. We enjoy it quite a lot.
FWIW, I unplugged 2 Echo Dots in 2020 when, after neither myself or my wife had done any searches online of a specific and unusual topic and that we had discussed that topic verbally only between ourselves......shortly after (like by the next day) when I opened amazon to browse my account / order status page, I received popup suggestions that clearly suggested items that my wife and I discussed privately!
I wonder what else had been heard? My political views?
Mike A.
Known around here
- May 6, 2017
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It was cool when it came out for voice control of home automation. Huge step up from what you used to have to go through to make that happen and works well. Still is for some I suppose. But I don't like talking to my house or doing much else as far as active control other than to handle exceptions - most everything runs on schedules or triggered automations. So I only very rarely use it for that. Don't remember the last time. I do use it to make announcements when some of my cams are triggered (e.g., "motion detected in backyard").
Only time that I've ever used it to shop was when they first came out and they had some great deals if ordered through it. Overall kind of a frustrating experience unless you just want to say "Hey Alexa, order toilet paper" and let it do whatever that gets you. Too much back and forth to get things right and easier to just do online.
Only time that I've ever used it to shop was when they first came out and they had some great deals if ordered through it. Overall kind of a frustrating experience unless you just want to say "Hey Alexa, order toilet paper" and let it do whatever that gets you. Too much back and forth to get things right and easier to just do online.
I've heard similar stories of that type in the past, @TonyR. But a thought just came to mind as I read your post... I wonder what would happen if one were to play audio snippets of the various physical ailments humans suffer from on a frequent basis?
How many would be surprised if increased coughing triggered ads for cough medicine... sneezing triggered allergy/tissue ads, etc?
edit: I would not be surprised
How many would be surprised if increased coughing triggered ads for cough medicine... sneezing triggered allergy/tissue ads, etc?
edit: I would not be surprised
I lost it when I asked Alexa to wake me up at 5 in the morning - and the following day the alarm clock sounded like she was moaning 
Gargoile
Getting comfortable
At least you were not QVC that when selling the Echo on TV, they said Hey Alexa "order a pizza from Dominos" And then people who were watching the presentation started to see pizzas show up at their home. QVC had to reimburse them...too funny.
And this was 5 years ago! ==>> Kindergartener Accidentally Orders Pricey Toy Through Amazon's Alexa
I haven't watched SNL since 2016 or so when they began to be so political but I love this one:
Don't Look Up
Getting the hang of it
Better than her saying "you lied" the next morning...I lost it when I asked Alexa to wake me up at 5 in the morning - and the following day the alarm clock sounded like she was moaning
Don't Look Up
Getting the hang of it
Still works well with my Hubitat home control, never had the intent to order anything with it, and frankly I'm too old to fit in with the demographic Amazon is probably interested in. Plus I'm old enough to to not give a shit anyway, unless they like me talking to myself (Which Red Green says is OK, BTW..).
The biggest piece of junk to be created for mankind - in the beginning it was warm welcome, but its really the boundaries of being annoying. Everyone is entitled to privacy
I thought it was cool in the late 90s when I wrote a voice recognition program like Alexa and used the parallel port to fire relays and when I saw Alexa come out and it was cloud based, I knew it was doomed.
FWIW, I unplugged 2 Echo Dots in 2020 when, after neither myself or my wife had done any searches online of a specific and unusual topic and that we had discussed that topic verbally only between ourselves......shortly after (like by the next day) when I opened amazon to browse my account / order status page, I received popup suggestions that clearly suggested items that my wife and I discussed privately!
I wonder what else had been heard? My political views?
It's not just Alexa that does this. Your phones and other mobile devices are also listening to you 100% of the time too. This type of story is so common now that it is considered normal by most. (That's not a good thing either).
1000%
I have had my phone do this TONS of times. Scary as shit.
I’ve been a long time iPhone user. My first iPhone was a iPhone 3 when Nextel dissolved. My current phone is starting to have issues, I’m considering switching to a Pixel phone and loading grapheneOS on it.
I just switched my computer to Linux and am trying to learn that. Once I feel that I have a grasp on that, I’ll probably be switching phone OS’s too.