WSJ: Amazon Has Lost Billions Selling Millions of Alexa Devices ⇥ wsj.com

Dana Mattioli, Wall Street Journal:

When Amazon launched the Echo smart home devices with its Alexa voice assistant in 2014, it pulled a page from shaving giant Gillette’s classic playbook: sell the razors for a pittance in the hope of making heaps of money on purchases of the refill blades.

A decade later, the payoff for Echo hasn’t arrived. While hundreds of millions of customers have Alexa-enabled devices, the idea that people would spend meaningful amounts of money to buy goods on Amazon by talking to the iconic voice assistant on the underpriced speakers didn’t take off.

According to Mattioli’s reporting, in a span of just four years — 2017 through 2021 — Amazon lost $25 billion on “devices”. According to SEC filings (PDF), this category would likely include things like Fire TV sticks, Ring doorbell cameras, Kindles, and Alexa products. It is unclear to me what portion of these losses can be specifically attributed to Alexa devices.

I know I am probably an outlier, but I have never understood why someone would buy anything with just their voice. I cannot think of a reason why I would buy any of these smart speakers in general, though I understand why controlling your house with your voice could be useful for a person with a disability. But buying things from the world’s most popular flea market without any control over what shows up at your door sounds horrible.