[michaelt]

One neat thing Amazon are doing with this product, which I hadn't considered as an "internet of things" option, is making each unit of hardware order a single supplier's goods. All the example buttons say "Tide" or "Bounty" or "Gillette" or "Olay" right on the button - all Procter & Gamble. And the other goods pictured [1] are all brand-name goods with fairly big marketing budgets.

In the jargon of the grocery industry, this means the buttons can be "supplier funded" - Procter & Gamble probably pay Amazon a reasonable portion of the cost of the button, as a marketing method.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/oc/dash-button

[deegles]

What if the Dash becomes very popular? I believe we'd see an explosion of companies funding dash buttons which would, in my opinion, be a bad thing for the customer. I don't like the idea of locking myself into a brand for the life of the device.

I'd like to see a configurable button that orders, say, the cheapest paper towels that have at least a 4-star rating. The suppliers probably wouldn't be happy about the competition though.

[DanBC]

> I don't like the idea of locking myself into a brand for the life of the device.

You're not the target market. Some people exhibit strong brand loyalty for some stuff. In the UK you'll get people saying that baked beans must be Heinz and no other brand.

I tend to agree with you. I want a button I can push to order the cheapest washing detergent. But that gets complicated. Do I mean actual cheapest price at the till, or do I mean cheapest per wash? Does that mean I want to buy a huge 15 litre tub of industrial detergent?

> that have at least a 4-star rating.

Amazon ratings are already sub-optimal. I could imagine a time when all P&G employees have to buy P&G products from Amazon, and have to give high star ratings, in order to help fix the ratings. Perhaps I'm just overly cynical.

[_lce0]

> Some people exhibit strong brand loyalty for some stuff

..but the point is that these people can _choose_ to exhibit such loyalty.

This is well-studied and understood. People can stick with a brand for years, until suddenly they change it for another and completely forgot about the other.

The dash seems like just another convenient lockin

[mseebach]

The point of funding Dash buttons is that they're free for the consumer. You're locked in, only so far as you can't be bothered to throw out the button, or just not push it, or instead push the button provided to you for free from a competing brand.

That said, it's almost impossible to imagine that a future where Dash is successful doesn't contain configurable buttons like the ones you describe - they probably just won't be free.

[cushychicken]

That's a really insightful strategy. Amazon wins by not needing to sink more development time into cheaper hardware by getting P&G to offset costs, while P&G wins by effectively pays a one-time fee per customer per product to ensure a steady stream of sales.

Hadn't thought of that angle at all. Enlightening comment!

[monkeyprojects]

$2 a year for a permanent advert within someone's house which also generates sales.

Sounds like a win / win for both P&G and Amazon...