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A comment on Amazon Dash Button. Parent comment

Re:Amazon Dash Button by mikeash on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @01:34PM (#9298265)
My question/complaint is basically: rather than put all this effort behind a single-purpose button, why not work on reducing the friction for using a mobile app for the same purpose? There's no reason you couldn't have, say, a button on your phone's home screen where pushing it causes cat litter to arrive. This would be about as convenient, and way more flexible.

Edit: and the answer is pretty clear, I think. If people actually go for this, it'll be a massive advantage for Amazon. It essentially banishes competition permanently for people who use the button regularly. It'll also make people much less price sensitive. So I completely understand why Amazon would try to push this. I just don't understand why anyone else finds it interesting besides that.

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Re:Amazon Dash Button by skorgu on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @04:13PM (#9299554)
Personally I think smartphones will never be good at known-goal interaction. They're general-purpose devices with a hilariously low-throughput interface that need to accommodate low-tech users. You're always going to have to navigate a bunch of screens to get to any given function because the real estate is so small.

Could apps be better? Sure. Can any app get as good as a button that's already right there when you realize you need a replacement? I don't see how.

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Re:Amazon Dash Button by jakobegger on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @05:20PM (#9299980)
Anytime I pull my phone out to do something specific I end up checking twitter and forget what I wanted to do.
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