In an interview with Bloomberg, Dave Limp said that he "absolutely" believes that Amazon will soon start charging a subscription fee for Alexa

Running AI is so expensive that Amazon will probably charge you to use Alexa in future, says outgoing exec::In an interview with Bloomberg, Dave Limp said that he “absolutely” believes that Amazon will soon start charging a subscription fee for Alexa

  • Nindelofocho@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    1 year ago

    im actually surprised companies havent tried to charge for voice assistants already considering pretty much everything you say to them gets sent to some service somewhere

    • kescusay@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      1 year ago

      Yeah… The moment they do that is the moment I turn off and disconnect every smart speaker I own, take them to the electronics recycling place, and start building out an open-source smart home setup.

      I use commercial smart speakers because they’re easy and cheap. The moment they stop being one or the other is the moment they stop being in my home.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.todayEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        and start building out an open-source smart home setup.

        Why are you waiting? Home Assistant is here now and it works pretty damn well for running a smart home.

        At this point all Alexa is / does is act as a voice enabler for my HA setup and even that will be going away soon. They’re working hard to have a localized VA of their own. It’s actually usable NOW it just doesn’t have “Wake Word” support yet so you have to PTT (Push To Talk) on something for HA to know you want to talk to it.

      • SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        I shut mine off a while back when I was sure they were advertising stuff based on things we were talking about in the same room. We were discussing moving the chairs out of the office and the next time we went to play music she wanted to sell us new ones.

        It might be a total coincidence but screw that.

    • Hasuris@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      62·
      1 year ago

      They could be handing those out for free and they’d still rot on the shelves. People just don’t know what to do with them and I am not certain Amazon does.

      Charge for them? That’s meta verse idea quality.

      • can@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        They were pretty much were giving away google home minis away in Canada and I still decided against it. See them at thrift stores all the time.