A: That will be 25 cents. Unless you enroll in Amazon Prime.
It has been this way for a while. Voice activated tasks or trivia searches don’t translate into selling other products.
Don’t worry, they’ll simply remonitize it via selling the data it generates via listening to every word you and your family utter. (Assuming they don’t already).
I’ve always been perplexed as to why people would pay good money to bug their own homes.
Err, to be clear, I meant the “you” in my snarky rhetorically, not directed against any individual here.
“Assuming they don’t already.”
Probably; likely. I have an Alexa in my home on occasion it will respond and speak when I’m talking (on the phone or to someone else present or even sometimes when I am muttering to myself) and respond to what I’m saying even though I know I didn’t at any time use the buzzword “alexa”.
Tim, I’ve seen many reports on the phenomena of people mentioning something in their house, or in private, then within minutes an add appears for it on their phones or computers. Even if it’s something offbeat.
Might be coincidences, but my hunch is it isn’t.
What surprises me is that companies would continue to pay for this data. How do those companies monetize it?
The case for a company to buy data is if they can better target advertising, so they sell more stuff with less money spent. But I doubt using this data would have that effect.
The attempts that I see are things like e.g. I’ve bought a kitchen knife, so Amazon tries to sell me more knives. But I’ve bought the one knife I broke and had to replace; I don’t need more.
Companies will eventually learn this and reduce the money they’re paying for this data.
So the one place that will keep paying (because it has no cost pressure) is government. Who cares if it’s a waste of money? It’s not theirs after all, and they’re not measuring effects by money saved anyway.
They monitize it by building profiles, or just selling it to those that do, same way the car companies are monitizing all the spying they do with “connected” cars. Slightly different data, but still very much in demand. (Otherwise, they wouldn’t be spending billions on data centers to store all the data they’re stealing about your life).
And yup, the government is one of the buyers, though far from the only one. Your insurance company, for example, likes to know everything from what you eat to where you drive and how you drive.
With a profile, they know all sorts of things, ranging from age, medical conditions, political beliefs, religious views, where you work, where you shop, the entire detail set of your life. That’s gold for targeted marketing. It’s also gold for scammers, and thieves.
They wouldn’t do this unless there was a profit in it. (Like Dillinger used to say about why he robbed banks: That’s where the money is).
My phone gets 20 – 30 calls a day. The ringer is turned off and I just check the call list once a day. Almost all the calls are 3 rings only (so not routed to voice mail). Does this make sense? Yes, if you’re a contract coder from Angola, and you solve each problem in isolation.
Problem. We get charged per connection. Most connections are to voice mail.
Solution: 3 rings only.
This sort of thing is why, over three decades ago, I adopted a policy of treating my phone number like my social security number. If there’s not an absolute need for whomever is asking for it to have it, they don’t get it (and if they insist, like many companies do, I just lie.).
I get maybe four crap (marketing, scam, robo, etc) calls a week.
My phone has a white list. If you’re not in my contacts list the call goes straight to voicemail. Like WB said 3 rings and they hang up. But my phone will ring if it’s someone it recognizes.
“My phone has a white list.’
You do realize how racist that is, don’t you Mr. Spain (if that’s your real name)?
Hmmmmmmm?!?
The least of my problems, having a past that includes architecture of a master/slave digital communication protocol for microprocessors sharing a serial line.
But I identify as Martian. 👽
So I’d say it’s a grey area…
You no doubt had to assert dominance over that serial line, stopping other signals, making you also a serial killer.
Oh, the humanity!
We had to make sure that serial line had proper impedance matching as well.
In other words, termination. Termination, with matching resistance of extreme precision.
All the “artificial intelligence” outfits are in their insane money burning phase, pouring investor money into huge power bills and Nvidia. Let me know when one actually turns a profit or even finds an application that someone is willing to pay real money for, not $20 a month to fool around.
Amazon seems especially good at finding big holes to throw money into. Google too.
Q: Hey Alexa, what time is it?
A: That will be 25 cents. Unless you enroll in Amazon Prime.
It has been this way for a while. Voice activated tasks or trivia searches don’t translate into selling other products.
Don’t worry, they’ll simply remonitize it via selling the data it generates via listening to every word you and your family utter. (Assuming they don’t already).
I’ve always been perplexed as to why people would pay good money to bug their own homes.
Err, to be clear, I meant the “you” in my snarky rhetorically, not directed against any individual here.
“Assuming they don’t already.”
Probably; likely. I have an Alexa in my home on occasion it will respond and speak when I’m talking (on the phone or to someone else present or even sometimes when I am muttering to myself) and respond to what I’m saying even though I know I didn’t at any time use the buzzword “alexa”.
Tim, I’ve seen many reports on the phenomena of people mentioning something in their house, or in private, then within minutes an add appears for it on their phones or computers. Even if it’s something offbeat.
Might be coincidences, but my hunch is it isn’t.
What surprises me is that companies would continue to pay for this data. How do those companies monetize it?
The case for a company to buy data is if they can better target advertising, so they sell more stuff with less money spent. But I doubt using this data would have that effect.
The attempts that I see are things like e.g. I’ve bought a kitchen knife, so Amazon tries to sell me more knives. But I’ve bought the one knife I broke and had to replace; I don’t need more.
Companies will eventually learn this and reduce the money they’re paying for this data.
So the one place that will keep paying (because it has no cost pressure) is government. Who cares if it’s a waste of money? It’s not theirs after all, and they’re not measuring effects by money saved anyway.
They monitize it by building profiles, or just selling it to those that do, same way the car companies are monitizing all the spying they do with “connected” cars. Slightly different data, but still very much in demand. (Otherwise, they wouldn’t be spending billions on data centers to store all the data they’re stealing about your life).
And yup, the government is one of the buyers, though far from the only one. Your insurance company, for example, likes to know everything from what you eat to where you drive and how you drive.
With a profile, they know all sorts of things, ranging from age, medical conditions, political beliefs, religious views, where you work, where you shop, the entire detail set of your life. That’s gold for targeted marketing. It’s also gold for scammers, and thieves.
They wouldn’t do this unless there was a profit in it. (Like Dillinger used to say about why he robbed banks: That’s where the money is).
My phone gets 20 – 30 calls a day. The ringer is turned off and I just check the call list once a day. Almost all the calls are 3 rings only (so not routed to voice mail). Does this make sense? Yes, if you’re a contract coder from Angola, and you solve each problem in isolation.
Problem. We get charged per connection. Most connections are to voice mail.
Solution: 3 rings only.
This sort of thing is why, over three decades ago, I adopted a policy of treating my phone number like my social security number. If there’s not an absolute need for whomever is asking for it to have it, they don’t get it (and if they insist, like many companies do, I just lie.).
I get maybe four crap (marketing, scam, robo, etc) calls a week.
My phone has a white list. If you’re not in my contacts list the call goes straight to voicemail. Like WB said 3 rings and they hang up. But my phone will ring if it’s someone it recognizes.
“My phone has a white list.’
You do realize how racist that is, don’t you Mr. Spain (if that’s your real name)?
Hmmmmmmm?!?
The least of my problems, having a past that includes architecture of a master/slave digital communication protocol for microprocessors sharing a serial line.
But I identify as Martian. 👽
So I’d say it’s a grey area…
You no doubt had to assert dominance over that serial line, stopping other signals, making you also a serial killer.
Oh, the humanity!
We had to make sure that serial line had proper impedance matching as well.
In other words, termination. Termination, with matching resistance of extreme precision.
All the “artificial intelligence” outfits are in their insane money burning phase, pouring investor money into huge power bills and Nvidia. Let me know when one actually turns a profit or even finds an application that someone is willing to pay real money for, not $20 a month to fool around.
Amazon seems especially good at finding big holes to throw money into. Google too.
Alexa who?