Alexa at 10: Amazon’s assistant is a winner and a failure

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Alexa didn’t get a big splashy launch event, or come with a bunch of grand proclamations about being the future of anything. Instead, like a phone charger with a made-up name or a knockoff version of your favorite blush, it just kind of appeared on Amazon one day.Ten years ago this week, on November 6th, 2014, Amazon launched the Echo and the smart speaker era. The device quickly spawned countless more, from Amazon and others. It became the emblem of a voice-