• t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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    4 months ago

    $25 BILLION dollars wasted. Imagine how many people that could have helped. Fucking travesty.

    I’m not against private commerce, but these companies sure are working hard to change my mind.

    • Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org
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      4 months ago

      Amazon sold at a loss, but I don’t imagine the employees or suppliers and their employees feel like being paid was a waste.

      • Blake (he/him) @beehaw.org
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        4 months ago

        Well, sure, but I’m sure most coal miners don’t feel super great about their specific job and profession generally. It’s a waste of resources and capital generally, not at a zoomed in level

        • towerful
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          4 months ago

          If you think coal mines are bad, wait till you see the conditions in the Alexa mines!

    • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.alOP
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      4 months ago

      I wouldn’t describe it as wasted, even at a stretch. Alexa drives tonnes of money Amazon’s way.

      • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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        4 months ago

        Not according to the article:

        Per “former employees on the Alexa shopping team” that WSJ spoke with, however, the amount of shopping revenue tied to Alexa is insignificant.

      • MagicShel
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        4 months ago

        I agree. Plus, right now Alexa is somewhat integrated with my life. I’m constantly interacting with Amazon’s ecosystem. Take that away, and it becomes another online retailer (a hugely important one, but nonetheless…) and movie rental service. I could easily step away from Amazon in a way that is more difficult today.

        Multiply that across their customers and is the value 6 billion per year? I don’t know, that’s a lot of money, but it’s not a simple cost analysis.

        • jarfil@beehaw.org
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          4 months ago

          Amazon claims to have Alexa on 100 million devices, so $6 billion/year would be $60/user/year.

          It’s not peanuts, but… Amazon Prime has 230 million subscribers worldwide, that is $140/user/year.

          Sounds like one could be financing the other.

        • sunzu@kbin.run
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          4 months ago

          If you step away from everything Amazon today a consumer… you are still using them for 30% of your web experience, you just don’t know it lol

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      4 months ago

      Hey, bud?

      Maybe you should think about how they could possibly waste all that money while turning a profit. Then ask yourself what other industries are doing the same thing?

      Is it, maybe, just maybe, all of them?

      Is that why you’re expected to work a job you hate until the day you die despite productivity being higher than it’s ever been?

      Like, absurdly so. Maybe ask yourself why society could function reasonably well when a farmer could feed five people but things are more or less the same but with cellphones when they feed 150 instead.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
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      4 months ago

      It could’ve helped 0 people… because people with the $25 billion want to say “Alexa, do this”, instead of sitting on their sofas an reveling on how they sent $60/year to help someone they don’t know, out of which 90% went to finance the people helping, not the helped ones.

        • jarfil@beehaw.org
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          4 months ago

          It wasn’t an investment round, Amazon got it from customers. Then, from among the options of:

          • Let customers say “Alexa do this”
          • Give each customer a $60/year discount coupon
          • Spend it on charity
          • Build a 300ft tall golden statue of Jeff Bezos

          …Amazon decided that people would give it even more money, if it did the Alexa thing.