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Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

Not just that, but every respectably large brand other than Apple will have fragmented their product into a zillion overlapping SKUs that will mean that ordering the correct product will require a list of qualifiers comparable to an elaborate Starbucks order.

Alexa, I want the tide high-efficiency unscented cold-water large box of detergent please.

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I was skeptical about buying through Alexa until I finally tried it. I found out that I value convenience more than detailed selection, at least for reorders and staple products (kitchen and bathroom soaps, etc).

Is it smart enough to know that "buy more soap" means to get the same soap you bought before?

Or you could just buy 3 soaps every once a year and you wouldn’t need to speak to Alexa at all.

You have subscribe and save and amazon dash buttons as non-voice alternatives.

I've never had the slightest problem with my dash button WRT counterfeit and SKU foolishness... push button next to empty kitchen trash bag box, receive kitchen trash bags tomorrow, it really is that simple.

What happen's when your kid presses the button 20 times?

They won't send you 20. And stop putting little buttons where your kids can press them. Of course they want to.

They won't send you another one until the first one has arrived. Also you get notifications and the option to cancel each one when the order is made.

Frankly, I'm disgusted.

I couldn't be part of the electronic, energy, packaging and transport waste that this approach contributes to.

If I run out of trash bags, I buy more next time I'm at the supermarket. If I'm likely to forget to do that, I'll leave the empty box somewhere visible until I do remember, or if it's urgent write a note on a scrap of paper.

"Alexa, next time I'm at the supermarket, remind me I need trash bags" would be far more reasonable.

"Cortana, next time I'm at Kroger, remind me to get trash bags" is something I use all the time still. It really is the best approach, and something I don't think Cortana gets enough credit for, as one of the key "personal assistant" workflows that they made sure they got right.

Notification spam on my phone makes that unusable. In between google asking my review of a gas station and some mobile phone game bugging me for not playing enough and a notification about an email that I handled on a desktop six hours ago and a missed call from a suspected spam number there might or might not be an important shopping list notification but I'll never see it buried in the reflexive clearing of spam notifications. And I have it relatively easy...

One of the first things to do is to switch off and actively refuse all notifications unless you find one that is really very, very useful to you. It makes no sense to leave the defaults.

There are entire apps that I've found alternatives for simply because I didn't like their notifications. I'm also very quick to deprioritize and/or block notifications for apps that don't need notifications. Notification management is a real concern.

I still think that the Windows Live Tile approach to notifications that don't need immediate attention is still one of the best, and wish Android and iOS would both offer something much more similar to that as a good option to help clean up the notification world.

The composition of waste is probably different between online and brick-and-mortar stores, but the total waste is probably similar given that the total costs are similar.

For all those times I'm in my house without my phone or laptop to order something?

Quiet you. If we don't constantly overengineer solutions to simple problems a lot of our industry will be out of a job.

Is it possible to turn off third-party sellers?

I'd be afraid of getting a counterfeit, and possibly dangerous or poisonous, product blindly ordering from Amazon third-party sellers.

Avoiding third-party sellers doesn’t mean you’ll avoid counterfeits, alas. Amazon mixes stock, so even if you buy directly from Amazon, you could just as easily end up with an item from a third-party seller claiming to sell the same thing.

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