Perhaps the giddiness over the Amazon Dash button is from boosters giving Amazon the benefit of the doubt. But far too many pundits and general observers are enamored with everything Amazon does. Under any other circumstance the idea would be seen for what it is: Ludicrous. Yet no one seems to notice.
The Dash button is a small, wireless-enabled button tied to a specific product (like Tide detergent). It looks kind of like a small thumb drive, and you are supposed to stick it on, for example, your washing machine. When you run low on Tide, press the button and it is ordered (via Amazon Prime, of course).
Given the product tie-ins, it’s safe to assume that part of this idea involved nicking the big companies for the pre-sales. In other words, Procter & Gamble pays to get the Tide brand promoted.
I have no idea how many boxes of Tide or any of the other products (including Maxwell House coffee and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese) will actually be sold via pushing the button. But this will not end up a success because it is close to being idiotic. Shipping a box of Tide by UPS is reminiscent of Pets.com, and its notion of shipping huge bags of dog food.
I recommend you all watch the video promoting Dash. It’s a hoot.
A number of curious and depressing conclusions can be drawn from the video and the idea itself.
First, it assumes you are leading a life of banal sameness. You never try anything new. You are also caught up in an existence so hectic you cannot sit down for a minute to shop on Amazon to try new things. You definitely hate going to the store once in a while to buy a box of soap.
It also assumes that anybody with a sense of taste and décor will be sticking these gauche buttons all over their house.
Once you push the button, you still have to check in at Amazon to confirm the purchase. That will be happening a lot since anyone who sees one of these buttons—guests, uninformed spouses, and especially kids —will be pushing it all the time out of curiosity, with no idea what it does.
Some people will think that through the magic of technology the button will dispense Tide on the spot.
This is typical idealism, which permeates the tech scene, especially with the “Internet of Things” coming our way. These buttons should be categorized as items within the IoT spectrum.
I was listening to a tech podcast recently, and the host swooned over the whole IoT concept and refused to acknowledge anything bad would ever come of any of it. He specifically said that even if someone could access his online home thermostat, why would they mess with it? He did not expect to come home from vacation to find his house in a deep freeze or at 99 degrees. It’s never going to happen, he claimed.
I know for a fact that this fellow had experienced the earliest generation of malware during the DOS era, when you’d insert a floppy disk into a system and get a snarky message followed by the erasure of your hard drive. It was a pointless mean-spirited prank, done for no other reason than to satisfy some vandal’s perverse sense of self-worth and an imagined power over others.
The Internet of Things will invite the worst in people, just as this Amazon button will encourage everyone who sees it to push the button, over and over.
Be on the lookout. It’s button-pushing time.
Original Article by John C. Dvorak
