These companies are all quasi confused about what these devices are.
Voice isn't the thing, it's a mode of interacting with the thing.
The thing is: the digital home.
Amazon is comically dropping the ball here. They have the tablets. They have the TVs. They have the reach. They have the home security division. Integrate, integrate, integrate.
Alexa is just a mode of communicating with the digital home. It's a feature of the digital home, not a monster profit product by itself.
It's like thinking a stylus is where you'll make money on a business tablet. No, it's a way to input.
I sometimes wonder if companies have a plan or do things and it all just kinda falls into place. I used to make fun of Steam for the DRM part, but when combined with their Proton effort, OS and Deck all of a sudden all the crazy puzzle pieces fell into place, I started to wonder to what extent it pure chance vs conscious planning by Gabe.
I agree with your point on integration. All the pieces seem to be there already. I would not want it, but I clearly was not target audience to begin with ( and this stuff was flying off the shelf life crazy ).
I don’t know. Steam was DRM, but they smartly saw its ability to be a platform for selling everyone’s games.
Proton/OS/deck all just seem like hedges against their constant enemy: Microsoft. That was always the existential threat to Steam, and MS made it official when they launched their store.
It’s great it worked out, but I don’t think what we have today was in any of the early plans. I think most of it came later.
Isn't Valve known for letting employees work on whatever they want? I'd imagine they already had a bone to pick with MS and wanted to be able to play games on Linux. Before that, things like the controller also seemed like "scratch your own itch" projects. They're good at making pieces that naturally fall into place.
Companies don’t have plans; individuals have plans and sometimes companies fake it because either enough individuals at a company are moving in the same direction or because there’s one or two charismatic leaders at the company driving it.
Sometimes companies don’t even have that and you get spastic, impulsive, uncoordinated, un-driven, near-net-zero movement, like a defibrillating heart.
Voice isn't the thing, it's a mode of interacting with the thing.
The thing is: the digital home.
Amazon is comically dropping the ball here. They have the tablets. They have the TVs. They have the reach. They have the home security division. Integrate, integrate, integrate.
Alexa is just a mode of communicating with the digital home. It's a feature of the digital home, not a monster profit product by itself.
It's like thinking a stylus is where you'll make money on a business tablet. No, it's a way to input.