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Amazon Could Charge Up to $10/Month for Alexa

McWetty said:
I dumped 10-15 Alexa devices 2 years ago with the exception of an Echo Show 15 in the kitchen (the built in Fire TV solved a problem). This would be a perfect time for Apple to swoop in with a HomePod / AppleTV / Screen combo that I can mount where the Show 15 is and be fully done with Alexa.
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iPad. Cough cough. iPad.
 
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Not defending Alexa (don’t even have it in my country) but “Amazon has not made significant updates to Alexa in the last decade” is a weird statement as she was first released in November 2014, less than a decade ago.
 
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Ten bucks a month for what is undoubtedly the worst AI/Assistant in this space. This is sign of it's demise. The only losers in this are the people that are buried and have it so dialed in, into the Amazon/Prime services infrastructure.
 
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Yea, that'll work.

I had two Amazon Echos for quite a while. Sometime last year, controlling what they showed on their screens became impossible. All I wanted was weather, a few photos, and the time to rotate. No matter what I turned off in the settings, I still got all sorts of crap. It became ridiculous.

With the advent of nightstand mode on the iPhone, I moved my HomePod Mini next to my bed, bought a full size HomePod for the living room (where the mini had been). The two Echos got packed up and traded in for an Amazon gift card.

They start charging for Alexa access, I think a lot more people are going to do the same thing.
 
cjsuk said:
Yeah, nope! Not a chance!

The only reason this AI stuff is currently popular is it's free. It's not really worth anything to people unless it's free.
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There’s no such thing as free, you pay with your user data. Apart from in apples case as they make their money on the hardware
 
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Tech companies see that we’re bored and lazy, and they are capitalizing on every part of our screen addiction.

We need to stop mindlessly consuming digital content and services. That’s the only way these subscriptions stop.

- says a guy mindlessly scrolling Macrumors at 7am 😂
 
Recently Prime unilaterally added commercials to streamed videos. This began as a couple of ads before the video began, and now includes additional ads inserted into the programming without regard to its effect on that programming (e.g., loud ad during quiet moment, ad immediately prior to a reveal, etc.). The experience is pretty bad. So that interruptive annoyance may be avoided for the low, low price of $3/month plus tax so let’s say $40/year. Yeah, nice revenue stream, on top of annual Prime costs.

We no longer bother watching Prime videos.
 
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I'm quite heavily invested in Alexa to control smart devices - lights, plugs, fans. The price and range available of Alexa compatible devices is far greater than Homekit - check Amazon (ironically!) to see just how few Homekit compatible devices there are vs Alexa, and they're much more expensive.

Will be a difficult choice to forego the 'smart' capabilities I have invested in, so I may well be suckered into a sub, paid for from my pension, to keep Bezos' bank account topped up!
 
I got rid of all my Alexa’s about 3 months ago when they were obviously listening to our discussions. I started a thread on this in the Home pod thread.
I have a feeling they will start charging for their Blink systems…which I admit are a bargain. If that happens I will rid of that as well.
Btw I replaced them with two Home pod Minis. Love the sound!!
 
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roar08 said:
Prime really does seem like it's pushing customers so far already...
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Pushed me out.

I only got it for the 2-day free shipping. The video crap showed up later.

Then they kept cranking the price up. I occasionally watched a bit of the video, and still liked the shipping.

Then the "2-day" shipping started taking a week. Now we're getting into "is this worth it" territory.

Then ads on the video. That did it, canceled. I despise ads, and I absolutely WILL NOT pay for them. It's the same reason I had my land line phone disconnected, I realized over a decade ago that I was paying for telemarketers to call me, I had it turned off.
 
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Victor Mortimer said:
Pushed me out.

I only got it for the 2-day free shipping. The video crap showed up later.

Then they kept cranking the price up. I occasionally watched a bit of the video, and still liked the shipping.

Then the "2-day" shipping started taking a week. Now we're getting into "is this worth it" territory.

Then ads on the video. That did it, canceled. I despise ads, and I absolutely WILL NOT pay for them. It's the same reason I had my land line phone disconnected, I realized over a decade ago that I was paying for telemarketers to call me, I had it turned off.
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The only reason I still have Amazon is due to be invited into their “Vine” program….i get free items to review. Otherwise I would rid of Amazon. As you stated, prices rising and taking 2-5 days for delivery.
 
I could imagine it being a thing on-top of Amazon Prime. Like 1 USD more or so.
Stand-alone 10 USD - are they totally high and coked-up over there?

I have a co-worker who literally has conversations with ChatGPT like she's a person. But I don't think he has anything Alexa-related.

Apart from the first tier of iCloud and a subscription for WeatherPro, I don't subscribe to anything. And I find talking to machines tiresome. As long as I can type, that will probably be a lot faster in any but the simplest cases.

I got a company-branded egg-timer as an Easter-present from my employer and now I mostly use that instead of hoping Siri can understand the amount of minutes on the timer she's supposed to set.
 
bmolands said:
If they charge to use it or have a free ad-tier, I'm trashing all of them and getting HomePod minis. Hopefully we'll get revamped HomePods that could take advantage of AI in the future. 8 GB RAM seems like a lot though for a HomePod. Maybe they'll allow it to be done off-device.
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And in the latest news... Apple rolls out new Siri Premium subscription for HomePod and iPhone, for only $9.99 a month! This new Siri is magical!! 🪄
 
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