I’m never going tie my money to a voice activated anything. The last thing I need is to have a prankster on YouTube say “Alexa buy 1000 rolls of toilet paper” at March 2020 prices.
Sure, but the people who do buy things via Alexa buy way more stuff from Amazon. Just owning an echo suggests you’re one of Amazon’s most lucrative customers:
That article only says that Prime members spend more than non-Prime, and that Alexa users are more likely to be Prime members. It then uses the high sales numbers of Alexa-enabled devices to conclude that spending on Amazon is going to increase.
The problem is this:
> In a press release earlier this month, Amazon revealed the Echo Dot was one of the two "best-selling products purchased by U.S. Prime members from any manufacturer in any category across all of Amazon" (the other was the Fire TV Stick).
The month in question was December. All those Echos and Fire Sticks were being bought to give as gifts. How many of those get used a dozen times before the new owner loses interest and it gets left unplugged in a drawer? I'll be generous and say it could be as much as 55% since the sales were for Prime members and holiday gifts are frequently exchanged among family, so the Echo will end up in the same Prime household. But why should I believe that giving an Echo to a non-Prime member will increase their engagement with Amazon at all?
