[ghaff]

You're thinking too much like an engineer :-) It's not a speech recognition breakdown but it's certainly a voice interface breakdown in the sense of I can't get the device to do what I want it to do. As a user, I don't care where in the pipeline my attempts to communicate a desired action break down. I just know that they do.

[gffrd]

Exactly. We're used to dealing with either humans, who are intuitive and highly adaptive, and technology, which we manipulate and have total control over (so long as the system displays its status, we can find our way). We're not used to systems that expect us to interact with them in natural language, but have very specific criteria around what we ask for.

It still feels a lot like the old text-based RPGs, in that you spend most of your time trying to figure out how to phrase something to accomplish a basic need, while angrily thinking "it would have just been easier/faster to pick up my phone."

It's 2016. How are we still OK with the unreasonable constraints of technology that make us jump through a hoop like a trained poodle to get the treat?

[aryamaan]

Same can be said for GUI as well. Remove the search engine concept, you are only left with playlist, song/artist name on such sites.

We don't have audio search engine equivalent yet but that day is also not far.