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Alexa had “no profit timeline,” cost Amazon $25 billion in 4 years (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It could've helped 0 people... because people with the $25 billion want to say "Alexa, do this", instead of sitting on their sofas an reveling on how they sent $60/year to help someone they don't know, out of which 90% went to finance the people helping, not the helped ones.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Consumers didn't themselves have, or pay Amazon, the $25b. Amazon had it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

It wasn't an investment round, Amazon got it from customers. Then, from among the options of:

Let customers say "Alexa do this"
Give each customer a $60/year discount coupon
Spend it on charity
Build a 300ft tall golden statue of Jeff Bezos

...Amazon decided that people would give it even more money, if it did the Alexa thing.