Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

Re:Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush by vlunkr on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @01:42AM (#13227261)

Living in a house with no great internet options for a couple of years kind of cured me of my impatience with technology. I have co-workers who get ticked off immediately if the internet is out for more than a minute and get Comcast on the phone. I think it's good to lower your expectations with technology a bit. You really can live without internet or Bluetooth connectivity for a few minutes.

But I'm also in the same boat with using older "dumb" tech. People can't believe I buy cd's still, but hey, you can get nearly anything used on amazon for a few bucks and it's DRM free!

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Re:Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush by GuiA on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @01:49AM (#13227289)

> I think it's good to lower your expectations with technology a bit. You really can live without internet or Bluetooth connectivity for a few minutes.

I just get annoyed if something that would work instantly otherwise doesn't work at all. Say I want to put on music while cooking - putting on a record or CD would take 5 seconds, and work 100% of the time. But if Spotify is down, or asks me to update my password, or has removed the album I've played every week for the past year from their library, or I have to re-sync my bluetooth speaker, etc., then now I'm dealing with this instead of getting on with my cooking.

Whether this expectation is unreasonable or not is clearly a personal matter, but for me it seems like a pretty basic thing to demand from the objects I own.

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Re:Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush by icebraining on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @02:50AM (#13227510)

putting on a record or CD would take 5 seconds, and work 100% of the time

That's not my experience at all; the damn scratches in CDs made me switch to an MP3 player as soon as I could afford one, back in the early 2000s.

Streaming audio is still shitty, that's true, but MPD reading off of a local disk actually works reliably.

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Re:Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush by cyxxon on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @04:43AM (#13227903)

In addition to that the 5 seconds seems really low. I own around a thousand CDs, I guess, and can guess where each is sitting in my shelf, but I would have to go to the shelf, scroll along it a bit to pick the correct album, get it out, go to the player, take out the old disc, put that in its tray, put in the new disc, hope it is not scratched or otherwise damaged (I have discs where the simply information-carrying layer simply disintegrated behind the coating), and carry the old disc to the shelf and sort it in. Oh, and when I am done in the kitchen I now want to continue the music in the living room, so... I don't know? Since I got Sonos I just search for the album, doubleclick it, and group the speakers. I also use a local library on a NAS in addition to GPM, so it works without internet.

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Re:Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush by vacri on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @02:22AM (#13227407)

> if the internet is out for more than a minute and get Comcast on the phone

I love those people who choose to purchase the bottom-tier internet, and then bitterly complain about how terrible the customer service is. "So open your wallet and get an ISP with good customer service" -> cue look of hate from them.

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Re:Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush by daphreak on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @04:42AM (#13227898)

Unfortunately not all of us have alternative ISP's to switch to. I hear upgrading to a business account can help with certain providers but that's not always available at all locations.

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Re:Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush by vacri on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @05:34AM (#13228121)

Oh, for sure. I just mean those people who can choose.

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