In September 2023, Amazon announced the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition. It looked just like the regular Echo Show 8 smart display/speaker, but cost $10 more. Why? Because it could display photos on your home screen for as long as you wanted, as long as you signed up for a $2 monthly subscription to Amazon’s PhotosPlus. Now, roughly a year after the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition was released, Amazon has announced that it is discontinuing PhotosPlus. That means Echo Show 8 Photos Edition users will be forced to endure ads in place of their beloved photos.
According to The Verge yesterday, Amazon began sending emails to PhotosPlus subscribers stating that it would automatically cancel all PhotosPlus subscriptions on September 12 and no longer support PhotosPlus starting September 23. PhotosPlus, according to Amazon's message, “makes photos the primary home screen content you see on your Echo Show 8 and includes 25GB of storage with Amazon Photos,” Amazon's online photo storage offering. Users can continue to use the 25GB of Amazon Photos storage after September.
However, users will no longer be able to make photos the indefinite home screen on the Alexa gadget. After September, their devices will no longer have the “photo-forward mode” that Amazon advertised for the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition. The photo-forward mode, according to Amazon, allowed people to “make select personal photos the primary rotating content on the ambient screen” (photos that rotate every 30 seconds). Now, Echo Show 8 Photo Editions will function like a regular Echo Show 8, with ads and promotions showing after three hours by default.
“The end of my Echo Show 8”
Amazon never explained why owners of the standard Echo Show 8 couldn’t use PhotosPlus or the photo-advanced mode. The devices looked identical. It’s possible that the Photos Edition used additional hardware, but it’s likely that the $10 premium on the Photos Edition was meant to make up for lost ad revenue.
But now, people who bought the Photos Edition may feel like they’ve been caught in a trap. After paying $10 extra for a device that can display unlimited photos instead of ads, they’re being forced to use the same user experience as the less expensive Echo Show 8.
“I honestly have zero interest in keeping it if it’s going to show ads all day,” Reddit user Misschiff0 said in response to the news. “Sadly this is the end of my Echo Show 8.”
Other customers have talked about ditching the Echo line altogether in response to the changes. As Reddit user Raybreezer wrote:
I'm dying for a replacement smart home speaker with a non-Google screen. I hate the echo every day [sic] more and more in line.
PhotosPlus was always a tough sell
Amazon may make more money selling ads than it does selling PhotosPlus subscriptions and related hardware. It was always a bit odd that PhotosPlus only applied to one Amazon device. Amazon may have considered expanding PhotosPlus to other devices, but it didn’t get enough interest or funding from the company. It seems hard to get people to pay monthly for a feature that some argue the gadget should already support out of the box.
Amazon spokesperson Courtney Ramirez told The Verge that Amazon discontinued the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition in March. She said Amazon regularly “evaluates products and services based on customer feedback” and that users can still use their Echo Show 8 Photos Edition to show photos.
But it’s hard to ignore that Amazon would discontinue a product after just six months, banning the device’s exclusive feature just a year after release. The short-lived Echo Show 8 Photos Edition and PhotosPlus service join Amazon’s graveyard of gadgets that also includes the discontinued Astro business robot, Just Walk Out, Amazon Glow, Fire Phone, Dash buttons, and the Amazon Smart Oven.
Amazon’s rapid shutdown of the smart display and PhotosPlus is emblematic of the struggle to find a lucrative purpose and significant revenue stream for Alexa devices. Alexa has reportedly been profit-free for years and has cost Amazon tens of billions of dollars.
Amazon is betting that the upcoming generative AI version of Alexa will be so good that people will pay a subscription fee to use it. But with stiff competition, generative AI implementations that vary in accuracy and relevance, and some consumers already turned off by the AI marketing hype of consumer gadgets, it’s going to be tough for Amazon to turn the tide. A premium-priced Alexa device that loses its key functionality after a year also doesn’t inspire confidence in future Amazon products.
