Amazon is getting into your pants… by getting into your house. And it’s working!
Last year Amazon started releasing details about what their newest invention would be. The “Dash” button, a little white circle sitting next to a brand name that you can push to order that specified brand's product, and then presto, it shows up at your door a few days later! The button communicates to an app on your phone to purchase desired products and send them to you.
Now, Dash buttons have become available to buy. But here are a few issues with Amazon’s latest invention that customers are sure to experience.
1) Not remembering you hit the button… “The 5am button push”
If you're stumbling out of bed, half asleep and about to take that hour long commute you have to make every weekday, you'll definitely hit your Maxwell House button if you notice you're almost out of coffee. That oh-so tempting button. And then eight hours later you’re driving home and you can’t recall if you hit the little forsaken thing or not.
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2) The accidental button push.
Amazon gives you a half an hour “grace-period” to cancel any orders you might have accidentally made as you receive a notification of every order on your phone through the app. But if for some reason you don’t see the notification, you might end up with an extra order of Arm & Hammer Cat Litter, or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. (or even Trojan condoms...)
3) The arguments.
Hitting that button will be fun. And after 24 hours, you can place another order of a designated product that you want. It’s guaranteed there are going to be many, many disputes across the nation from couples arguing over WHY yet another delivery of Brawny toilet paper has shown up at the door when “I just ordered that yesterday!”
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4) A lack of options.
… and addictive buttons to push. If you’re going to push a button it should be for something you’re excited about (like Cheetos or Oreos!). So far all Amazon is offering out of the several hundred brands available (as of August 12th) is Milano Cookies and Doritos. That's it.
5) With addictive options comes… too many addictive buttons.
Along those same lines, if you’re trying to diet having a Doritos Dash button stuck to your pantry or a Hershey’s Variety Pack Dash button tucked into your cupboard (or even more conveniently, next to your nightstand) isn’t exactly going to help you along.
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6) Not to mention…
… having kind-of-ugly-brand-adorned-buttons decorating your entire house, showcasing exactly what kind of monster you’ve become.
Your home is slowly turning into a grocery store.
7) Amazon wants you.
Actually, they just want your money. It’s pretty clever, and likely the biggest reason why Amazon has created Dash buttons. Not for the people, but for them (Amazon). Not everyone is going to remember how much they’re spending in Dash button purchases… Amazon is doing this just to try and suck more cash out of you. And it’s working.
8) It’s working because:
You’re about to buy a $5.00 button from Amazon where they give you a $5 credit to immediately buy more products from them. There will be households with these tiny suckers stuck to every wall of every room in their house… there won’t be an escape!
9) Imagine:
Throwing a party, getting wine drunk, and hitting every button in your house! Or, WORSE, having someone who’s a vindictive drunk pushing all the buttons in your house, taking your phone, and okaying all the orders they’ve just placed for you. How sweet of them!
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10) It’s really not much more convenient.
Items won’t arrive for a couple of days, by which point you could have easily just ordered them online (or gone to the grocery store GASP), committed a conscious act you won’t forget, and completed some other shopping as well. Instead you might forget you even ordered that toilet paper until it ends up at your door, by which point you’ll just recall that other thing you needed as well.
Oh, and this doesn’t work for everyone. Only Prime members. Such is the way the world is moving.
Through all of this debacle at least one thing is clear: the only way to assert your dominance in a world where people are so easily distracted and disloyal is to to be everywhere. Amazon is dominant. Maybe the Dash button program works great for Amazon, or maybe it tanks horribly and a different company manages to create a better “your-desires-are-only-a-button-push-away” program. This is the future, I guess.
courtesy of giphy.com
