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Amazon is forcibly upgrading Prime members to Alexa Plus, and users are not happy (www.androidauthority.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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  • Alexa users who are Amazon Prime members are reportedly being automatically upgraded to Alexa Plus.
  • Users who have been upgraded can revert to the old Alexa by saying, “Alexa, exit Alexa Plus.”
  • One user claims that they were “flooded with ads” after downgrading back to Alexa.
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[–] 99 points 10 months ago (33 children)

They probably need to show investors that the money spent developing it is worth it. “We’ve added X amount of users this quarter alone!”

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  • [–] 33 points 10 months ago

    It worked for Microsoft. The month after they started to force install Teams in windows they published user numbers showing how teams had sprinted ahead of Slack by that metric, and the tech press mostly ate it up.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (31 children)

    Maybe, but how do they respond to the followup "Nice! How?"

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  • [–] 40 points 10 months ago (25 children)

    That's probably not a question that'll get asked, unfortunately. What will get asked is why those numbers dropped off abruptly the next quarter.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (24 children)

    Why would it not get asked? It's the most obvious, logical followup

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  • [–] 19 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    Large Shareholders some care about how the line goes up, just that it does. Constantly. Every quarter.

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  • [+] -6 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Then they wouldn't even be the people getting told this information about subscription numbers, so I'm still not sure how it's supposed to work

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    Subscription info is definitely part of the information provided to investors. The raw numbers may not be in the financial documents, but revenue from subscriptions most definitely is and will give a general idea of changes even if the company doesn't give the numbers directly.

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  • [–] -2 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Right, but again, if they're that birds-eye-view, then the bump in subs in one spot is negated by the drop in the other and the net result they're looking at is what they care about.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Shareholders are dumb panicky creatures. As long as the numbers aren't terrible and you say some nice things most of them take it as gospel.

    Spinning shit as a positive is a full time career in the corporate world after all.

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  • [–] -2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Right, but I'm saying the "numbers" aren't influenced by this.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    They are as far as the shareholders are concerned if Amazon is telling them about different tiers of subscription. The bullshit the company spins is just as, if not more, important than the raw numbers. Especially when companies only report mandated info and the raw numbers they're referencing aren't disclosed for comparison.

    Statistics is the art of making up a narrative you want to show via numbers, and finding a way to say it exists regardless of reality.

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    if Amazon is telling them about different tiers of subscription

    Which, as I said, means it all comes out in the wash. If revenue is +100% here and -100% there, it's 0%. Either they are looking big picture, and that's what they see, or they're zoomed in and therefore in a scenario where they would ask the follow up.

    They care about revenue going up. It doesn't go up, unless it does.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (13 children)

    As a shareholder, you are financially incentivised to not question narratives the company presents if they supposedly present the company in a good light.

    Suppose you do ask, the narrative unravels and the share price tanks. Congrats, you've just lost a buttload of money. Why would you do that?

    No, best option is to applaud loudly, tout it in the press and watch useful idiots buy your shares at inflated prices.

    The people who do ask the questions are the people the company doesn't feel obliged to answer.

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  • [–] -2 points 10 months ago (12 children)

    That doesn't make any sense. Nothing unravels, numbers moved from one chart to another. The big number didn't actually change.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (9 children)

    The share price might change, as that's largely based on feelings instead of facts. Sure they didn't sell as well, but they presented numbers that look better (even if they aren't) so line go up.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Why would the share price change.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (7 children)

    Because Microsoft presented numbers that chuds think sound good, so they will want to buy their shares, pushing the share price up. The people who own shares but know the numbers are fud will shut up because idiots are buying their shares at a premium. The people without shares who know better won't buy shares, which doesn't affect the price, and Microsoft just replies nothing to their questions.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Presents them where though?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (5 children)

    At a shareholders meeting/end of year report/etc... Does matter as long as it goes public.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Okay, which is where they will either follow up, or just see combined metrics

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (3 children)

    I just explained that the shareholders wouldn't do that, because that only risks the shareprice going down, which is against their interests.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Wouldn't do what? Read the report they got?

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Not usually. These people tend to be really stupid. There's a reason why businesses degrees are made fun of so much.

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  • [+] -7 points 10 months ago* (3 children)

    I mean, do you have any examples of companies trying to pull this? Where they automigrate one base of users to another tier of whatever it may be, and then successfully pretend it was organic growth?

    I've worked in many corporate settings where projects have to show their results and that sort of thing would never make it past the middlest manager.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    This is a good one: https://lemmy.world/post/41564641

    Amazon also got in trouble for auto enrolling people in prime.

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