Amazon is really, really good at getting stuff to you really fast. Except with its own devices: It seems to constantly run out of them, right after they go on sale.
Amazon Is (Not Very) Despondent After Fire TV Sells Out
New gadget, same non-problem: Jeff Bezos can’t make enough devices.
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.
Good thing the press is there to document the outages, which of course are good problems to have.
Back in 2007, for instance, Amazon’s first batch of Kindle e-readers sold out in 5.5 hours. Kindles sold out again in 2008, and then again in 2009, after Amazon rolled out a super-sized version, even though that one never seemed to catch on. There was another new Kindle sell-out in 2010. And 2012, too.
Jeff Bezos didn’t have that problem with the Kindle Fire tablets he’s been pushing for the past few years — the only times those have sold out were when the company was winding down inventory in advance of a new launch.
But now, just a few days after its April 2 launch, Amazon says it is out of new Kindle Fire TV boxes. Amazon’s site, which continues to promote the Apple TV rival on its home page, says new ones won’t be available for seven days. Amazon PR rep Kinley Pearsall is vaguer, though possibly more optimistic, via email: “We’re thrilled with the customer response to Fire TV so far — we’re building more as quickly as we can and we’re expecting more inventory next week.”
Until then, would-be customers will just have to occupy themselves by watching Gary Busey extol the virtues of the Fire’s voice control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHoNQrxG_8M
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
Most Popular
- Photos reveal strange sea creatures that scientists have never seen before
- Packing the Supreme Court is no longer a fringe idea
- The Supreme Court just handed down two surprisingly timid Voting Rights Act decisions
- Take a mental break with the newest Vox crossword
- This animal kills 100,000 people a year. Why can’t we stop it?
