Just replace whatever smart software (Roku etc..) with Amazon's. I don't see how this is a problem. Especially for people who use Amazon regularly anyway, which is a very large amount. Plus you can still connect any other streaming box of your choice if you want to ignore the "smart" software, or like the portability of being able to move the box to different televisions.

And for the conspiracy theorists out there, anything shady Amazon may do, the company that build you're existing smart tv could do the same.

Mold the customer to fit what the app wants, not the other way around

I don't know why everyone's freaking out. Home security cameras that connect to wifi have been around for years. And a lot of them already integrate with the echo. There's no difference here other than the camera being directly on the echo and that it doesn't record video.

Several reasons, as far as I see it.
1. Competition. In the past, several people had one or maybe two choices. And if that service was bad, or flat out didn't work, they had no other option. This is another option.
2. Reliability. In many ways, wireless is more reliable than wired. There was a point when I had AT&T uverse when every other weekend I had to stay home waiting for a tech to show up during his window. A tech who had no capability to fix anything. They'd reset something and the service would work a couple more days then break again. Wireless solves that issue. If it breaks it breaks for everyone. They fix it.
3. While unlimited data is common for mobile phones. That data has in the past been limited when it comes to tethering wireless data to other devices like laptops, tvs etc... This pretty much amounts to unlimited tethering, which hasn't really been a thing.

As far as data speed. Most people don't care about that as long as they can stream what they want.

The real story here for me is that T-Mobile is offering wireless home internet at 50 Mbps at $60 a month,

I've always wondered how it's possible on Google Play that apps can have 90% one star reviews but somehow still end up with a 4 star rating.

The cyberwar isn't new, it just hasn't been televised.

What would be even dumber is if they weren't already hacking Russia the entire time.

The best example of this phenomenon is Google podcasts. It went from the best podcast app to unusable in one update.

Youtube Music replaced Google Play Music, and while it's not horrible it's clearly worse.

Well it's one thing to not like the music. But to completely dismiss them as not being artists and say they don't know anything about music?

There is no shortage of great singers and musicians and never has been. It's all a matter of taste and exposure.

Even in your Lady Gaga example. You may not like her, but anyone who has even a vague knowledge of her knows she plays the piano in spite of you saying she can't play an instrument. She's played piano since she was 4, studied music before launching her music career, and her National Anthem performance is considered one of the best of all time . Not only that, she did an entire album with Tony Bennet. All in spite of you saying she can't sing.

In other words, you don't listen to it and don't know anything about it, so it must be bad.

As far as phones go, I don't think anyone (consumers) cares about 5g, unless it means increases their data cap. 5g would be more useful if it could be used as a home internet replacement or on other devices like smart tvs, streaming boxes, game consoles or VR/AR headsets.

Yea, it's clear google has basically given up on creating an "intelligent" search engine and have moved completely to purely dumb statistical results. If 80% of the people that search most of the terms you entered clicked on a certain website, that must be what you are looking for too, right? If not, screw you, they were right 80% of the time. No need to complicate everything with silly things like context.

But also, if I'm being real, it's not like any of the other search engines are better.

I was able to avoid it at first by using the outdated Netflix app on my Vizio for a while. After that I just pretty much stopped using it. I did recently start just using the Android app on my phone to set up my list, but still barely watch anything because there's still that slight sense of dread realizing I have to open that roku app again to watch on my tv. Aweful experience.

Because if you slowed down, they couldn't write you a ticket for speeding.