Re:Amazon’s plan for Alexa
by tingletech on Monday November 11, 2019 @12:52AM
(#21502494)
I really like it, and I'm not convinced I'm giving up that much -- and I don't think there are negative externalities with my use of the device (how am I hurting anyone else?).
At the end of the day its just a fancy clock radio with okay sound that can play anything I want to hear without me getting up. But the "assistant" part of it seems like it is smarter than Siri or hey google.
Most new consumer technologies that end up in every home fundamentally change people's lives. I just don't see that happening here.
We talk about these companies destroying privacy, gaining power on the scale of nation-states, etc. And we put up with them on some things, because smartphones and social media are really useful and can be really important to living modern life. But I just don't get it with the assistants (and really, Amazon shopping too). We're giving up so much as a society for such a tiny modicum of extra convenience.