And people just triggering their half-dozen routines they made 3 years ago isn't enough engagement. Thus: a ham-fisted attempt to get people to use it more.

That said, it's a really interesting problem figuring out how to teach people what Alexa can/can't do. How do you tell your users "we built a feature so now you can set subscription orders!"

Personally, I don't get why they don't run ads. Like, instead of a smiley face delivery person, just say "here's a new thing your Alexa can do"

They will. Thing is if you asked Alexa to turn the lights on and it replied with an ad, people would lose their minds.

However, if you slowly erode the experience with these "did you know" quips and other time wasters, eventually people will accept the extra annoyance. Now you have the ability to slip in ads. Why? If you replace the 5-10 seconds useless quips with an ad that could save some one money, suddenly you invert the negative aspects of ads and the outcome is positive. No linger are you subject to needless did you knows and instead "useful" ads that tell you nike is on sale.

Did you know there is a setting to turn the did you know stuff off?

Did you know that this setting even used to work at one point in time?

Its frustrating that companies can't get it into their head that users may not want to know.

Also they have my email, and could send that kind of shit there so no excuses for updating the system to ignore the "follow up recommendations" setting.

Well, for starters, it needs to interpret queries better :) I have Echos across the house, and one Google device I got for free. Google's implementation "understands" way, way more. Amazon's offering is more well supported and they are less likely to pull a Reader, otherwise I'd have switched by now.

A monthly email seems more than adequate.

(...yet?)