In an interview with Bloomberg, Dave Limp said that he "absolutely" believes that Amazon will soon start charging a subscription fee for Alexa

Running AI is so expensive that Amazon will probably charge you to use Alexa in future, says outgoing exec::In an interview with Bloomberg, Dave Limp said that he “absolutely” believes that Amazon will soon start charging a subscription fee for Alexa

  • kescusay@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    Yeah… The moment they do that is the moment I turn off and disconnect every smart speaker I own, take them to the electronics recycling place, and start building out an open-source smart home setup.

    I use commercial smart speakers because they’re easy and cheap. The moment they stop being one or the other is the moment they stop being in my home.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.todayEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      and start building out an open-source smart home setup.

      Why are you waiting? Home Assistant is here now and it works pretty damn well for running a smart home.

      At this point all Alexa is / does is act as a voice enabler for my HA setup and even that will be going away soon. They’re working hard to have a localized VA of their own. It’s actually usable NOW it just doesn’t have “Wake Word” support yet so you have to PTT (Push To Talk) on something for HA to know you want to talk to it.

    • SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I shut mine off a while back when I was sure they were advertising stuff based on things we were talking about in the same room. We were discussing moving the chairs out of the office and the next time we went to play music she wanted to sell us new ones.

      It might be a total coincidence but screw that.