[moca]

In a company like Amazon, only one person can push for such a product, eg Jeff Bezos himself. For whatever reason, he just liked the product idea. Very few people would appreciate such a product as sales number shows. It is just a worse version of New Coke without Classic Coke.

[blisterpeanuts]

He must be surrounded by yes-men, because you'd think there would have been some push-back from people who know what they're talking about.

Elite techies and brand specifiers are panning the Fire phone; why didn't Amazon reach out to such people sooner and find out what features they are willing to pay for?

The Fire phone is hobbled right out of the gate by a non-standard Android version and a non-Google app store. They have to offer something more compelling to customers than "it will scan things into your Amazon shopping cart".

As others have suggested, bundling 5 years of Prime membership would have been a nice start. One year - not so much. I, like thousands of others, am wondering whether or not to renew my Prime at $99. Do I really need to spend that much money just to spend more money? Starting to doubt....