Early versions of voice assistants existed as far back as the early aughts, and Siri debuted on the iPhone in 2011, but Amazon's Echo spawned an entirely new class of gadgets: the smart speaker.But as initial Echo sales surpassed expectations within the company, Amazon and others began thinking of Alexa and voice computing as a new platform.One of the critical weaknesses for Amazon's ambitions to be in the business of nearly everything is that it doesn't own a platform.'Glorified clock radios'But Amazon's internal data and user surveys began to show voice commands are great for a narrow range of tasks: setting a timer, playing music, and finding out the weather.Amazon can't get people to buy more stuff with Alexa, and it chose not to require Amazon Echo users to have an Amazon Prime account, the only other credible pathway to making money."