Lazy Man and Money

Amazon’s Music Unlimited Has Pretzeled My Brain

by 7 Comments

I have three super powers:

  1. A great grasp of logic.
  2. A great sense of “value” (at least as it pertains to myself).
  3. The ability to write with humility.

Okay, maybe I only have two super powers… and they aren’t very “super.”

Part of this is why I can look at Beachbody Shakeology and say, “Hmmm, $4 a serving for what looks to be a $1 or $1.50 product seems fishy.” It’s what Spider-man would say has his Spidey-sense tingling.

Years of frugal shopping have trained me to do this automatically at grocery stores, restaurants, almost everywhere. Just like how you can’t look at words and shut off your ability to read them, I can’t shut off this subconscious calculator.

Then Amazon Music Unlimited was unleashed on the world.

When looking at the pricing options, my subconscious calculator says, “division by zero.”

Why I Find Amazon’s Music Unlimited Pricing So Difficult

Before I get to that, I should explain what Amazon Music Unlimited is. At the risk of over simplifying it is a subscription service to pretty much any song that you’d ever want to listen to. There’s going to be some gaps, obviously, but I read it is tens of millions of songs, which is on par with Spotify, Apple, and Google’s offerings. To make it easier, I’ll use the abbreviation SAG to refer to them.

Let’s start with the first thing. If you are NOT an Amazon Prime member the price is $9.99 a month. I think that’s the same price as the SAG options. That means it isn’t so much as a financial choice rather than a preference or convenience based on what ecosystem you may be in.

If you are a Prime member (like me), things get very interesting. Let’s pretzel!

First, Prime members already get a music subscription library, Prime Music. It seems have a few million songs. I can get a lot of my favorite Jack Johnson songs, but not the ones from the Curious George movie. There are some Liz Phair songs, but not her early stuff. Prime Music has a lot, but it’s not close to everything.

The best part Prime Music comes as part of the $99 annual subscription. So some part of my $8.25 a month already goes to that. Let’s call that $2, because I get some 2 day shipping and the kids watch some Go Diego Go! and Tumbleleaf

To get Amazon Music Unlimited, I’d have to further spend $79 a year, or $6.58 a month. There’s a monthly subscription price if I didn’t want to commit to a year, but my value brain/calculator prohibits me from paying $7.99/mo. when I could pay $6.58/mo.

Is it worth paying $6.58 to fill in the gaps of songs that I’m missing? Pretzel.

Some people happy pay the SAG companies $9.99 a month, so this would be a great deal for them. I’m not one of them, but at some price point, I’d have to say, “Well why not?” Thus far, I’ve decided that it isn’t worth it me.

But there’s more salt to add to the pretzel!

If you have an Amazon Echo, you have more options. I’m a huge fan of these devices and created my own site, Alexa/Echo devoted to reviewing the devices. With either an Echo or an Echo Dot you can get Amazon Music Unlimited for $3.99 a month.

That $3.99 price is enough of a deal to push my fleshy calculator into buying mode. I’ve got my credit card ready and I’m clicking…

…wait a second. The $3.99 price is only on one Echo device. If I get it for my Echo downstairs where I am 60% of the time, I don’t get it for my Echo Dot upstairs, the other 40%. It’s not streaming from my computer or mobile apps. If it covered all my Echo devices, an account that covers my own home, I’d get it. I think $50 a year would be reasonable.

Instead, the price point for the Echo only complicates matters. It makes me feel like I “deserve” the $3.99 price because I will most often listen to it on my Echo. This makes it even more difficult for me to pay $6.58.

It feels kind of silly to even get into a discussion on something about so little money. If I didn’t have a personal finance blog, I most certainly wouldn’t. I probably spent more time writing this article than it would have taken me to earn a year’s worth of music, right? I write about it, because it’s interesting introspection (at least for me), you be the judge.

Before I end this, I should mention there’s also a family price for Amazon Music Unlimited. My wife is more of a fan of Google Play and my sons, at age 2 and 4, aren’t large music consumers (except for that Curious George soundtrack). The pricing isn’t very competitive until you get savings for 3 or more people. That’s an easy option for me to take off the table right away. As the boys get older though, a family plan might make a lot of sense, especially because there’s annual pricing that makes it around $12.50 a month.

Save Nearly 50% on the Most Revolutionary Product in Years

by Leave a Comment

I usually try to stay away from clickbait titles. They always seem disappointing. However, I don’t know how you can be disappointed with this.

Yesterday, Amazon announced that it is releasing the 2nd Generation Echo Dot. The big news is that the price went from $90 to a penny shy of $50. And if you buy 5, you’ll get one free. (Hat tip to sister site Alexa/Echo.

That explains the 50% off part… but what about the “revolutionary” part.

Let me start by explaining what the Amazon Echo is… and then I’ll explain why the Echo Dot is better.

Amazon has a digital personal assistant like Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana. Amazon calls her Alexa. That’s not very unique, but digital personal assistants are arguably revolutionary. Amazon Echo is a microphone/speaker that is sitting and waiting for you to activate it by simply saying, “Alexa.” The difference is that you don’t have to find a phone, navigate an app, press a button, or anything. I can continue typing this sentence while I ask Alexa to play music Jack Johnson. It works from across the room (unless there’s a television on, or other significant outside noise).

The Echo is probably best at playing music, but it is also very good at home automation stuff. I can control my Nest thermostat upstairs while I’m downstairs, without a computer, tablet, or phone. You can order a pizza from Domino’s with it. You can have Uber send you a car. You can play Choose Your Own Adventure games. I even use Amazon Echo to teach my kids spelling and math.

The Echo is so popular that it’s become Amazon’s next billion dollar business. And as I hinted at above, I even started contact me.)

I feel that’s enough about Amazon Echo, but you want to know more you can read my original Amazon Echo review and my revisited Amazon Echo review.

Now, to tie all this together, I have to explain what an Echo Dot is and why that’s even better than an Amazon Echo. An Echo Dot is a very small Amazon Echo… about the size of a hockey puck, but thicker. It has a very small speaker that isn’t great, but it has Bluetooth and an audio out port. This makes it ideal for hooking up to a set of speakers or your stereo. This way you aren’t tied to the Echo’s speaker (though I think it’s great, some audiophiles may disagree).

Perhaps the best part is the price. An Amazon Echo will set you back $180, and it very rarely goes on sale. The Echo Dot is less than $50. So you can pair with speakers you already have. I paid the original $90 price for the Echo Dot and paired them with a deal I found on these bookshelf speakers. However, I could have paired it with my Oontz Angle Bluetooth Speaker. If you bought those two, it would be less than $80… less than half price of the regular Echo.

So why did Amazon drop the price nearly in half just five months after releasing it? My guess is that it is afraid of Google Home, which Google’s upcoming version of the Echo. Apple is rumored to be getting into the game as well. I think Amazon’s plan is to get Alexa everywhere first.

Imagine if Amazon invented $50 tablets before anyone else had released a tablet. Would people pay $400 or $500 for an Samsung Galaxy Tab or an Apple iPad? Maybe, but it might also be difficult to market it at that price.

I think it’s a great plan. I’m honestly considering getting the 6-pack, adding a couple more to the house, giving them as Christmas gifts, or using them as giveaways on the site. I’m tempted to go full-out Oprah: “You get an Echo Dot. You get an Echo Dot.”

What do you think? I realize that I’m more enthusiastic than most people about Amazon’s Alexa products (hence the other blog). Do “normal” people find this as amazing a deal as I do? Let me know in the comments.

Welcome to Alexa/Echo!

by Leave a Comment

Back in early March, I started a new blog, but I wasn’t willing to reveal what it was, mostly because it looked like crap. Instead, I wrote about in vague terms and created a series on starting a blog.

Two months later… it still looks like crap.

It’s been difficult to find time to write with my new role as a stay-at-home Dad in addition to running a scorching-hot dog sitting business.

Now that I’ve set the expectations ridiculously low, I can start to build it up a little bit. I’ve written 20 articles in about 2 months, which isn’t too bad considering I lost a few weeks to a vacation and catch-up.

Without further ado, I introduce you to Alexa/Echo. The blog is about covering everything around Amazon’s Echo product and Amazon’s Alexa voice recognition service.

I’ve been a fan of the Amazon Echo for awhile and reviewed it back in VERY late 2014. I revisited it a few months later. At the new Alexa/Echo blog, reviewed the new Amazon Dot, Echo’s baby sister (Dot’s a girl’s name right?).

This is all to say that I’ve been a big fan of the technology for a long time. You might wonder what makes the product and service different and worth blogging about. After all, Google has Google Now, Apple has Siri, and Microsoft has Cortana. The difference is that the Echo is always-listening and hands-free.

I simple call out, “Alexa, play Jack Johnson” and music plays. I don’t have to press a button, navigate to an app, type any words, or anything. It’s rare technology that simply works and reduces complication.

It’s easy to view it as just a music player, but I use the Dot in my bedroom as an alarm clock by telling Alexa to set an alarm. I can control my Nest thermostats in my house by talking to it. My wife can play Jeopardy by talking to it. I can get my daily calendar and news by asking it. I can have it read me Audible books. Maybe none of this knocks your socks off, but collectively, it’s pretty impressive, especially since there are no subscription fees. (An Amazon Prime account is very useful for the music, but we pay for that to get the fast, free shipping and access to the Prime video library anyway.)

Why Start Alexa/Echo?

If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m a fan. That’s most important. Many people say follow your passion, but that’s just one ingredient in the “cake of success.” It’s an important ingredient.

When I started the blog, Amazon had just announced the Echo Dot and Amazon Tap products. This release of new products in the family kicked off a bunch of media coverage and I started to realize exactly how big of a deal it is.

A newsletter that I subscribe to, Noah Kagen of OkDork and AppSumo fame, suggested that there were no good Amazon Echo blogs out there. (There are actually a couple.) He presented a very brief business plan on how such a blog could make some decent money. I think it was a little optimistic, but for a back-of-the-napkin calculation, it wasn’t bad.

So I went to look for a domain name. The first few dozen searches I made didn’t come up with any of preferred domains like EchoBlog.com. I don’t know why it took me so many searches, but I finally found AlexaEcho.com the two things that I wanted to focus on. My guess is that most people just use the Echo hardware and never really think about the Alexa software service that powers it.

I’m not one to believe in fate, but the domain’s availability surely seemed like a sign.

Why Tell You About Alexa/Echo Today?

I realized that I’m probably not going to make any headway on the design any time soon. (Unless there is a good WordPress designer out there who can work with the Splash theme. Feel free to contact me).

Yesterday, Google announced that it is making a copycat product called Google Home. I’d say that this validates the space, but some people are predicting that Amazon’s Echo could be their billion dollar business. I might as well piggyback on the news.

Deal: Pick Up a $95 Amazon Echo Today…

by 1 Comment

This will be another quick article since I’m on vacation.

If you use an Amazon store card and use promo code “ECHODEAL” as described here an Amazon Echo is only $95.

If you don’t have the required credit cards, you can probably get one and buy the Echo at the same time. If you do a lot of shopping at Amazon, you’ll probably want to get one of those cards for the cashback anyway.

I bought one when it first became available. I’ve written a Amazon Echo Review and even revisited Amazon Echo. For those too lazy to read the reviews, it’s best described as Siri or Cortana, but always on, always plugged in, and not very mobile. Sounds useless, right? I find it is very useful to play music, especially from Amazon Prime, Pandora, or even my favorite radio station.

It’s good fun for the kids too. Just ask it to spell words. If you really want to put it to work, ask it to spell a a long word from Mary Poppins.

It does a lot more things. In fact, I get so many emails about new features that I can’t keep up with trying them all.

Usually, the Amazon Echo is a lot more money… it’s been as much as $200. So to get one for $95 is a sizable discount. I think that’s a fair price for my use. If I ever figure out how to use those extra features, it could be worth a good deal more.

Finally, (and this is unrelated to the article), raise a toast to veterans who help protect our freedom. I like to make a donation to the USO.