Sure, but just a few decades ago there were people dismissing all of e-commerce saying "why would I order online when I can just pick up the phone and call in my order?" I'm sure before that there were people saying, Why do I need phone ordering when I can just mail an order form to Sears? I think it's a mistake to bet against a more convenient form of consumerism.

>Sure, but just a few decades ago there were people dismissing all of e-commerce

Were they? From what I recall people were saying, "Why isn't this catalog a webpage yet?"

I'm not sure if buying a bunch of little buttons and plastering them all over my house is necessarily convenient. Convenience is largely counter-intuitive. For example, you'd think everyone would get their groceries delivered at this point, but most of us drive to the grocery store. There's a larger convenience in having all these products at your fingertips, trying different brands, shopping for lower priced items, seeking deals, etc. You lose this flexibility with the Dash. Its also really ugly to have what look like ads plastered all over your home.

I'm surprised we all don't have a home robot with enough computer vision and fuzzy logic to figure out what we're low on and produce a list of items that need to be bought that week. I feel like some kind of robot revolution that was supposed to happen never did, so we're finding weird automation solutions that don't really work. I imagine this is what is was like when computers were rare and you could only use the ones at work because home computers weren't a thing yet. Smith-Corona kept making better and better typewriters but you really just want a word processor and printer.

> "Why isn't this catalog a webpage yet?"

Ah, Google's ill-fated attempt to scan all catalogs and put them online

The problem with Dash is that it doesn't really scale.

It scales as much as is needed, which is basically zero. The rate of growth in the number of products I buy is effectively zero. I use one shaving cream, one soap, one shampoo, one detergent, the same number I used 10, 20, 30 years ago and the same I will likely use for the rest of my life.

Also, I don't need a wall of buttons, a few inside the bathroom cabinet, a few inside the kitchen cabinet, a few at my workbench, in the garage, in my shed, is all I need.

I see Dash more like an experiment, it may not be the final product or disapear completely to become something else.

Even if I find this idea wasteful, I think amazon does the right move with just experimenting.

This isn't the scaling phase. Dash is also an API for automated ordering. And the button is a test to measure the usefulness of such API.Once there's data proving the idea, and an available API, Amazon and it's partners will scale this.

Good point about being an API. When combined with RFID, I can imagine smart fridges / washing machines utilizing this API to automatically order (or suggesting human do a 1-click order) when your Tide is about to run out.

Some form of Dash exist with industrial manufacturing and assembly( some part call it bins) Where the no of items are limited ,where obviously it scales nicely. To think that the Dash is a solution for all the items is not productive. I think Dash may have market for consumer items like diapers,sodas, Ramens kind of stuff, basically which once you consume more frequently.

Writing it off might be premature, at least it is worth a try.

Which part of it do you think doesn't scale?

Each product has its own button

If each button is seen as ad and paid for by the brand shown on it, the costs likely look good from both Amazon's perspective and the brand's perspective.

A button that costs somewhere between $5 and $10 might result in something like $240 worth of sales over its lifetime. (eg. 1 sale per month x $10 sale price x estimated 24 month lifetime)

Seems scalable to me.

I think the concern is that I have, for example, around sixty different spices on my spice rack. Do I stick a button behind each one? My cluttered cabinet with AA batteries, AAA batteries, CFLs, compressed air, WD40, several dozen other items? How about each item in my cluttered fridge?

I think the Amazon Fresh Direct concept mentioned elsewhere by mason55 makes a lot more sense. Stuck to the front of my fridge I want a little scanner--one on my fridge, one by my cabinet, one in my laundry room. Running something across the barcode scanner when it's low/empty is as easy as pressing a button, and doesn't mean I have to put a button on/beside every single item, especially ones that move around my disorganized shelves.

How frequently do you replenish your spices/WD40? If you are a restuarant, then a button would make sense. The dash, in its current form, seems suited to high-turnover products where the sales generated over the devices lifetime can cover the initial cost.

As someone else mentioned though, think of it as "Dash, the physical button" + "Dash, the API". The API is probably the long term goal, the physical button is just a (temporary) drop-dead simple API client that people can use today. Amazon is likely betting on smart-fridges/-pantries/-homes catching up in the future

Edit: in the near-future, I imagine Amazon adding a touchscreen (so it's not product specific) without adding much to BoM. They can also charge manufactures for on-device screen-time (who doesn't like ads that convert to an immediate sale?)

I think the next iteration is (or should be) a Dash button with an e-ink screen built in that can order any item and the screen changes to display the brand and name of the item it's setup to order.

Trying to add a changing ad screen to this would kill the battery life because of the check-ins to fetch the next ad. I also don't see that generating many sales because the customer would still need to change their set order, I think few people would accept Amazon outright changing what the button ordered based on the current ad.

I believe it's not intended to be an actual product for very long. Its a stepping stone to get consumers to the point where they are making purchases in situ, via the Amazon Echo for example. It's a behavior grooming thing, a social test balloon.

> Is it just me that finds the entire concept of the Dash ridiculous?

I mean, what's the idea, having a button for every single product we buy?

In markets with Amazon Fresh they are also trialing a single-device Dash. It operates as a barcode scanner and microphone and adds things to your Dash List on Fresh. Then you can go in and edit them or actually confirm them to your cart.

I have one and it's very, very useful. It hangs from my fridge and whenever I finish something I scan it and when I think of something I need I just speak it into the mic. It made me an instant convert from FreshDiret.

Also a owner of the dash and I'll confirm it's pretty useful. You can also think of it as a registry tool. If you bring it into a store, you can scan a bunch of products and it'll sync up to the cloud when you connect back to wifi.

It's the mindless-consumerism aspect of the idea that I find most disturbing: "press this button to feed yourself with product".

I'm tempted to start a conspiracy theory that these are just phase one of a plan to eventually have us all living in actual Skinner boxes.

How mindful does a task such as "Buy another tube of toothpaste" or "Buy more shampoo" need to be?

I can't speak for Amazon, but I've cancelled every single recurring order I've ever setup.

I once had coffee on recurring order. Then I went on vacation, and I was always one tin ahead. Then I had a business trip, and I was 2 tins ahead, then I was sick for a week and didn't want to eat anything. it was too much.

I once set up a recurring order on wine, at first I drank a bottle every other day. What fun! but then I just wanted a glass with dinner every now and then. Bottles started piling up, and now I have a good $100 of wine that tastes like vinegar.

Recurring orders suck. If you have a huge house to store things if you aren't on a perfect schedule it might work. For normal people, it's not ideal.

we have diapers on recurring delivery (honest company, not amazon), but they send us an email asking us if we still want them or if we want to delay shipment by a week, two weeks, etc. Seems to work fine. Does Amazon not do the same thing?

Amazon offers subscription services for many products (including windshield wipers). You set your schedule, you get an email, and you delay or cancel any time.

I don't think the concept is so ridiculous: it's easier to press a single button that is placed in the area where you'd normally notice the product you're looking for is running out compared to getting out an mobile app or visiting a website. Ease of use is likely to lead to more sales.

Maybe the idea won't work but it sounds worth experimenting with to me.

I don't see this becoming a single button for ever item in the house. I see the Dash button riding the middle ground between objects that you have highly predictable usage patterns or have a proscribed life span like toothbrushes where recurring orders make sense and less predictable items like paper towels where usage is harder to predict.

I think the goal is also to make using the button easier than just opening the webpage and ordering it so that when you notice you're running low you can just press the button instead of doing what most people do and adding it to a grocery list. It's also far easier than figuring out how often to set up the recurring ordering.

Their aim is at the utility closet and bathroom consumables like soaps/detergents, paper towels, and maybe cleaning products. Things that are stored an some particular place in the house where when you're getting low on X you push the button and get more 2-3 days later.

Or have it built into the bottle, perhaps even measuring the current fill level.

Like inkjet cartridges, it can simultaneously add electronics to landfill while increasing your spend on consumables!

Unless that's a refillable bottle that you don't throw away that would add a huge amount of waste and cost to every product.

I especially find the instant delivery order disturbing. Is that even close to necessary in 90% of the use cases? Putting the product in a shopping cart would be more than enough and would allow group shipping.

> I mean, what's the idea, having a button for every single product we buy?

It's a button for every repeatable commodity buy you make. Most applicable use cases are: toilet paper, detergent, cleaning supplies, certain groceries. In other words, it eliminates pretty much all friction to ensuring that you're always stocked with those products. You're right to be skeptical, but even just reducing a small amount of friction to buying means better convenience for the consumer and more money for Amazon.

Or you know, why not a phone application that would order the same thing with a single tap.

I think the idea is that this is eventually built right into the products. The washer with the built-in Amazon button for detergent, etc.

That's an interesting thought. There would be deals by detergent companies to include their button in a washer. Also maids could order the products themselves if they're responsible enough.

I'm thinking more about P&G giving you a free washing machine if you agree to automatic delivery and billing of their detergent.

You can certainly choose other brands to put in the machine, but every 40 cycles another box of Tide Pods will show up on your doorstep.

It's also about the sense of seeming control, even if the result is a perfect weekly subscription.