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Frame from Amazon Echo - SNL Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Amazon Echo - SNL

14 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this comedy video1 month2017–2022 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN brings it up as a joke and as design inspiration for voice assistants for seniors.

A Saturday Night Live sketch for the Amazon Echo Silver, a smart speaker for the elderly, in which older users misunderstand Alexa. It parodies voice assistants.

“SNL did a great skit on this” (HN, 2018)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · 2 jokes · Comedy · partly dated

5 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@bradbatt Jan 2018 Recommends
on HN thread HomePod arrives February 9, available to order this Friday
I'd be interested to see how older people interacted with the device. I know someone who got their parent a device and they kept "Alexa" written on a post-it because they couldn't remember the device name. It's a big shift in technology, but since it is voice interactive, rather than computer/smart phone, I think it does provide an ease of use for older people who might not be as technology savvy. SNL did a great skit on this … [this video]
Sketch on older people using Alexa

Citations, criticism and jokes

@wpietri Dec 2022 Cites it
on HN thread Win for privacy: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe
But a leader in what exactly? I have been looking for years for actual usage stats. E.g., MAU and UAM for VR headsets, especially ones broken out by length of ownership. I get that people are buying Oculus units because of the hype, but is there much sustained usage? If so, what exactly is keeping people engaged once the novelty wears off? As comparison, look at Amazon's smart speakers. $10 billion spent, lots of hype, part of the zeitgeist enough that SNL is doing jokes about it [1]. End of the day it's a "colossal failure": [link] [1] [this video]
Cited as sign of hype around smart speakers
@tlogan Jul 2017 Makes a joke
on HN thread Priceline now worth $100B
No - it is just about age. HN readers are younger thus they think they know more. Old people will just say: "I don't know about that" [1] [1] [this video]

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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