In a few weeks, Google will launch new versions of its eight-year-old smartphone, which probably few people will buy. But why do the giants insist on offering products that don’t rise?
Apple is reportedly concerned about the money it’s spending on Apple TV+, its online video service, which has a smaller U.S. TV audience than PBS, Xumo and Vudu, according to media analytics firm Comscore. If you’re wondering what Xumo and Vudu are, you’ve figured it out.
Amazon executives have tried to make the case to their bosses for its popular but money-losing Alexa home devices and will soon offer a paid version of the voice assistant’s artificial intelligence in an attempt to generate more money, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and the Washington Post.
It is comforting, in one sense, that America’s powerful Big Tech companies can struggle for years with unpopular or unprofitable products — sometimes both.
These companies have other wildly successful products, so a few hiccups won’t hurt them. But the struggles of a few high-profile products are emblematic of the fact that these companies don’t always take into account what you want.
One explanation is that tech geniuses aren’t always as genius as we think (or think they are). This context may help explain why Big Tech products can be frustrating, like unhelpful Google search results or questionable Instagram accounts.
Should these products exist?
If you had a lemonade stand with a pittance in sales, you probably wouldn’t run it for eight years.
But Google did it.
Just 5.5 million of its Pixel smartphones were sold in the United States last year. That’s about 4% of total smartphone sales in the country, according to estimates from research firm IDC. Apple sold 12 times as many iPhones.
The good news, according to Nabila Popal, senior research director at IDC, is that Pixel sales are better when you look at the high-priced phone category. The Pixel is popular in Japan. And the Pixel gives Google a platform to show off new features, like computer-assisted photo editing, that could later expand to other types of phones.
It would also be healthy if the smartphone vendors that dominate the US market, Apple and Samsung, had more competition to woo you. I own a Pixel phone and I like it.
But it seems like people are sending a strong message that they don’t want the Pixel by not buying it, and Google isn’t listening.
Google declined to comment.
The same could be said of Apple TV devices and the Apple TV+ service.
The five-year-old video service’s audience is so small that it doesn’t appear in Nielsen’s ranking of Americans’ TV streaming habits. According to research firm eMarketer, Apple TV devices rank far behind Google’s Chromecast devices when it comes to the ways Americans connect to streaming services on their TVs.
Asked to comment, Apple did not respond to our request.
You don’t lose much if relatively few people use Apple’s entertainment products or buy a Pixel phone.
But one might think about what we might be missing when companies’ money and attention are “stolen” by their little-used products. (A terrible idea, perhaps: what if, instead of the Apple TV, the company made a printer that people wouldn’t hate?)
Perseverance is a virtue, except when it is not.
Technology executives are quick to cite examples of products and ideas that failed for years before making spectacular breakthroughs.
Decades ago, Amazon was predicted to die because it was a bad deal. Meta’s history is littered with features, including Stories on Instagram and Facebook, which people mocked until they became hyperpopular.
The patience of big tech companies to keep trying until you like a product and it’s financially viable can serve you well.
Amazon has poured money into Alexa and its line of voice-controlled home devices, such as Echo speakers, for a decade. Many people love these products, which they use to play music, set timers, check the weather or entertain the kids.
But that enthusiasm has hardly translated into Amazon purchases or other profitable business for the company. Amazon’s gadget division has lost a lot of money, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That’s one reason Amazon plans to start selling a revamped version of Alexa based on a new form of AI. According to Reuters, the Wall Street Journal And Business Insidersome Amazon employees who worked on the project fear that few people will pay.
In a statement, Amazon said the redesigned Alexa is an opportunity to “provide even more proactive, personal and trusted support to the more than half a billion Alexa-enabled devices already in homes around the world.”
The struggles of Apple in entertainment, Google in smartphones and Amazon’s Alexa show why some products from big tech companies can limp for years.
Many companies and influential executives are convinced that popularity and profits will eventually come to their currently unloved products. Maybe they are right – or maybe it is a failure to listen to their customers.
This article was published in the Washington Post.
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