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Amazon Mulls $5 to $10 monthly price tag for unprofitable Alexa service, AI revamp (www.reuters.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

119 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a major revamp of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include a conversational generative AI with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of around $5 to access the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company's plans.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I wouldn’t trust Alexa

Trusting Alexa/Amazon is insane. It wasn't insane X years ago (your value of X will vary), but it definitely is insane now

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is just it, it can barely handle manage my lighting system. How am I going to trust it to make purchases? Brought to you by the same people who can't keep fake reviews off their platform.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Won't keep fake reviews off their platform. It's not a matter of ability, but of will.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So frustrating.

Can they prevent review fraud without requiring SSNs and background checks and more? (High-dollar item manufacturers could always pay randos to buy their items and leave 4-5 star reviews, right?)

Amazon could kill MRJHABCU and ANWKCB and PPQHZQS brands that give themselves 5000 positive reviews overnight… overnight.

But then the remaining products, wouldn’t they get review frauded real good?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

It's true you will never get rid of all of it but, just like crime, basic enforcement is a deterrence. They know who's buying, they know where they're shipped, they have a fair idea if they're returned. Just requiring reviews to be from purchasers after they've received the product, removing positive reviews for returns without replacement (or flagging them as returned), and a few other steps would make fake reviews either very expensive or very expensive for the results.

The fact is, Amazon makes most of their money on AWS, and I don't think they care to put in the real effort to make their marketplace trustworthy again. Without that, it will continue its downward spiral.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

As someone with ASD, GAD, and MDD (all diagnosed if it matters), smart home devices are an essential service to me. I can quickly set redundant reminders to help me with personal routines, add stuff to my shopping and to-do lists, and quickly get my lights and music set to what I need them to be when I am experiencing an anxiety episode. I definitely understand that my data is good and harvested at this point, and I don't trust them to have done anything good with it. But these dots have made my life work since I bought my first one, and they've significantly reduced the anxiety I used to be riddled with.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I'm glad these devices have proved useful for people like yourself, even at the expense of your data. you take the bad with the good, as they say.