Presumaby, there is a way to monetize Alexa purchases, but it has not worked out so far for Amazon. As one Amazon insider is quoted as saying, Alexa is a "colossal failure in imagination." However, I don't blame the Alexa product engineers since I, myself, can't see the value of telling Alexa to add a fleece jacket to my cart and then being invited by Alexa, to open the app and review my cart to verify the selection. There are very few purchases that I would just go ahead and confirm without further inspection. Not to mention reading the reviews.

Fewer improvements in the future

With huge cuts to the Alexa team, we will likely see a drop in innovation for Alexa skills, such as setting the temperature on the furnace, turning out the lights, or other conveniences that fail to earn money for Amazon once you have purchased the Echo device. Although Alexa may be a money loser for Amazon, it's still very handy for most of us users, as are many other voice activated apps. I would hate to go back to sending texts where I had to "thumb" in all the text.