I Know Where I’d Stick This Dash Button…

Last Updated on: 4th July 2015, 07:22 pm

Oh boy, I get to put on my old lady hat and rail against more technology. You’d never know I love the stuff.

Remember when I screamed about the hybrid computer/TV/fridge? Well apparently I had no idea what was coming, none at all. This becomes obvious when I made fun of text messages. I am not what you would call a visionary, apparently.

Now, there are these Amazon Dash buttons. Yes, this is a thing. Basically, you always buy a product, let’s say Tide laundry soap. You get a dash button for this product, and stick it somewhere, let’s say the washing machine. Then when you’re running low on soap, you push the button, and then they ship you soap via Amazon Prime.

This sort of made me think of an old exchange I had with my mom when I was a wee kid. I went through this phase of worrying about every little task my mom did, and wondering how I would be able to do the same when I grew up. Mom would sit down with the bills, I would wonder how I would read and pay the bills when I was on my own. We would go shopping for who knows what, I would wonder how I would pull this off when I was on my own. Mom would go over our homework or read our report cards, I would wonder how I would do this when I was all grown up and had kids. One of these conversations involved grocery shopping. After going through a grocery shopping trip with mom, I noticed that I would have problems with every part of this excursion. I wouldn’t be able to pick out the food on my own, I couldn’t pay since mom used cheques back then, How would I know what it all was when I got home? So I went on one of these what if question marathons I threw at her a lot. Her response was “well, you’d have these magnetic tags on all your food in your house. When you ran low on something or ran out, you would take the magnet tag to the fridge and stick it there, and when you had enough of these, you would have a grocery list. Then you’d go to the store, buy the new things, and then stick the tags on the things, and begin again.” Hmmm, a good theory, but even my kid brain was running into issues. What if I forgot to move the tag? What if the person helping me didn’t have time to put the tags on the food? What would you do with a cereal box instead of a metal thing? What if the tags fell off before you got home? And such is the case with these dash buttons. It’s a great theory, but I have so many practical questions.

Heck, this guy from PC Magazine has a bunch of my questions, with a few of his own.

I’m glad that every time these buttons are pushed, they send you a phone confirmation. I was having visions of the huppy, when he was about 2, and how much he loved buttons. I can’t remember all the times we had to remove all clickers, phones and anything else button-filled from his grasp, as well as close everything on the computer so if he decided to push buttons, nothing bad would happen. If he got near the actual telephone, we had to hold down the disconnect button so if he started dialing, he wouldn’t accidentally call China or something. Can you imagine the field day he would have had with these dash buttons? Or imagine if I ordered Tide, but forgot to tell Steve. Then he noticed it was low and ordered it too. Or what if people didn’t know what it was, came over, and just pushed it to see what it did? And can you imagine a house full of these buttons? What would you do if you wanted to have several buttons for different food products in the kitchen. How would you tell them apart? And can you reprogram them? Say you always buy one kind of Tide, and then become allergic to something in that Tide and want to get a different one. Can you reprogram the button, or does it become useless? And would you really waste all that shipping on buying just one product?

so many questions. I wonder if this will take off, or whether it will be a fad that we look back on and laugh at. I guess time will tell.

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