I’m not a music addict, I don’t walk around all day with earbuds stuck in my ears, and the only reason I signed up with Spotify a couple of years ago, was the price. Furthermore, Spotify Premium meant no annoying ads, so the few times that I actually used the service, a romantic dinner, for example, meant uninterrupted music. However, as described in YouTube Music vs Spotify, I then discovered YouTube Premium which in Argentina costs us around $2.50 per month. So I cancelled Spotify and signed up with YouTube Premium which offers a double whammy of both videos and music with many other benefits such as no ads and videos with higher bitrates.
Amazon Alexa
During our visit to the UK last August, I spotted the Amazon Echo Dot (Alexa) for sale at half price in our local computer store, and having been impressed by watching my daughter tell Alexa what music to play, I thought, why not? and grabbed one.
However, the Alexa, for want of a better description, does have certain drawbacks. Having installed the app on my phone and sworn at Alexa several times just for kicks, I discovered that unless I signed up for Amazon Music Unlimited, I’d be bombarded with ads between songs and/or playlists. Furthermore, unless you’re absolutely desperate, there’s no easy way to officially import YouTube Music playlists because Amazon and Google don’t seem to play nice together.
You can link Alexa with Apple, Spotify, and Deezer (which I’d never heard of), with YouTube Music being a glaring omission since I already have numerous YouTube playlists. Oh boy, can’t life be complicated in the tech world sometimes?
You can however pair other Bluetooth devices to Alexa, so I can easily play YouTube Music through the device, but the child in me wanted to give vocal commands to Alexa, create playlists, and shout silly things at it. So I signed up for Amazon Music Unlimited with a three-month free trial, later paying £10.99/$10.99. But I was surprised to discover that no special price for Argentina exists in spite of the fact that Amazon launched the service here back in 2022. Of course, the company may well have pulled out due to the dire economic situation in this country, so I’m still investigating that front.
YouTube Music
After the three-month free trial ended I forgot to cancel my payment and then realised that, once the novelty had worn off, we used Alexa for music less than a handful of times. It’s not that we don’t like music, but after a long day, it’s usually dinner and some TV. So I cancelled Amazon Music Unlimited, especially when I realised how stupid I had been for not twigging that I could play my YouTube Music playlists over Bluetooth to Alexa without even uttering a word to the annoying little robot.
Talking To Robots
The novelty factor of talking to the round, grey device called Alexa, who talks in a British accent no less, wore off pretty quickly. On the other hand, I can see how much fun it could be to have a smart home controlled by a device such as Alexa (you can change the name to whatever you like, within reason) because it’s supposed to be a hands-free process where you tell it to dim the lights, kick the cat or heat the jacuzzi, that kind of thing.
My conversations with Alexa went something like this:
Alexa, volume up!
Alexa, volume down!
Alexa, what’s the weather forecast?
(Alexa rambles on for a minute or so…)
Alexa, who’s going to win the general election?
(Alexa goes on for several minutes…)
Alexa, shut up!
(no response)
To be honest, I feel a bit of a plonker talking to an electronic device, even though one clear advantage is that Alexa is the only female in the house who actually listens to me – boom, boom!
There’s also the concern, that since ‘she’ is always online, does ‘she’ listen to our private conversations? I’m not a conspiracy nut, but certain people have voiced concerns over this lunacy.
In conclusion, we may just end up taking ‘her’ offline and simply use the device as a Bluetooth speaker or sell the poor thing to the highest bidder.
Do you talk to inanimate objects? If so, please comment in the section below.
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Everybody is on the ‘free money’ ads kick. It has gotten ridiculous. I stopped watching broadcast TV yrs ago because all it is,is a platform to cram ads into. The Internet found they could do it too and and the gold rush was on.
What is a real pisser is most think you OWE them money for NOT watching ads. I understand things cost money duh but really it has gotten out of hand. Pardon the pun but it goes hand in hand with streaming and companies buying broadcast sports to where we’ll all be paying extra to watch a game because some corporate big wig saw a money grab to include his little domain/realm with the big boys. Think Pay-Per-View for everything. Oh yeah don’t forget about those darn ads while you’re paying to view either.
Amazon doesn’t play nice with anyone. I shut them down after they refused to play claiming that my use of ‘EDGE’ was the fault. Get a lfe!
We’re big fans of Alexa and the (sometimes esoteric) music she can instantaneously retrieve for me at my whim; absolutely no complaints from us!