Technologies

Amazon’s Big Year of Thinking Small

Amazon built like our pandemic-fueled shopping spree would never end. Now it has, and the company’s shrinking.

We all came out of the last three years changed. Amazon is no different.

All that online shopping you did during the pandemic added to soaring demand, which combined with other economic forces to push prices higher. Costs got too high for the tech industry, too, driving companies to shrink their ambitions – even the gargantuan Amazon.

Amazon was already the Goliath of US e-commerce before the pandemic, representing more than 40% of the market, according to Statista. With the boom in online shopping, fueled first by lockdowns and then by stimulus cash, the company’s profits shot up for more than a year.

Then came the bust. Amazon’s growth stalled out in the middle of 2021, and it posted its first loss in seven years at the beginning of 2022. By November, Amazon was the first company in the world to lose $1 trillion dollars in value, Bloomberg reported.

The problem wasn’t just that we stopped shopping through our misery. Amazon, like a lot of tech companies, banked big time on our new buying behaviors. As we went back to brick-and-mortar stores and cut our spending this year, the company was left with an oversized workforce and a hulking logistics network it couldn’t support. This year, Amazon and its competitors scrapped large chunks of what they built during the pandemic.

For you, Amazon’s new frugality means its advancements on flashy new gadgets — or the inexpensive ones you use to set timers, create reminders and check the weather — may get less of the company’s devotion next year.

Amazon’s most visible sign of retreat was the planned layoffs, which the company has confirmed will happen without giving the number of employees it plans to cut. Estimates in new reports range from 10,000 to 20,000 people who will lose their Amazon jobs in the coming months, but that’s just the most recent glimpse of trouble. Amazon began telling investors in October 2021 that it had built up its warehousing and air freight capacity too much in response to early pandemic demand.

The middle of this year started to reveal casualties elsewhere in the company. Amazon shut down its physical bookstores and some Amazon Go convenience store locations. It jettisoned its Amazon Care health care service on doubts it would ever be profitable. And departments in charge of customer favorites like Alexa-powered devices took a disproportionate hit from the layoffs so far.

Amazon declined to provide a comment for this story but directed CNET to remarks Amazon CEO Andy Jassy made during the New York Times DealBook Conference. Jassy said then that Amazon wasn’t done making bets on businesses that could have long-term payoffs.

«What we’re trying to do is streamline our costs in a bunch of different areas, while at the same time making sure that we keep betting on the things that we believe long-term could change,» Jassy said.

Still, this year’s cuts at Amazon reflect a turn toward immediate profitability, said Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at GlobalData, noting that the company hasn’t found a way to profit from Alexa devices.

It’s a sign of an industry-wide reckoning with shoppers hitting the brakes on spending, Saunders said, adding, «A lot of companies behaved as if it was a permanent shift.»

Peaks and valleys

E-commerce hit startling heights in 2020. Shoppers dropped earnings and stimulus cash on home furnishings, gardening supplies and electronics, and growth of online shopping was remarkable. It shot up from a steady growth rate of around 16% at the end of 2019 to more than 44% in the summer months of 2020.

E-commerce is still growing today, but the frenzy is over.

But while spending was still at unprecedented levels, Amazon used the extra cash to feverishly build warehouses and air hubs. It doubled its ranks from just under 800,000 employees at the end of 2019 to more than 1.6 million by the end of 2021. And it wasn’t just Amazon. Shopify, the company behind many standalone online shops, also went on a hiring spree. Social media companies like Meta and Twitter benefited too, bringing in extra advertising revenue from merchants who aimed targeted ads at shoppers sitting at home.

Figures from the US Census Bureau show e-commerce spending is now where it would be if it had just kept growing at the same steady clip that it was before the pandemic. Even though the feverish buying started to cool last year, a few tech chiefs have said they thought the shift to online shopping was permanent. It wasn’t.

«Those chickens are coming home to roost,» Saunders said.

When Meta announced layoffs of 11,000 employees in November, CEO Mark Zuckerberg conceded it was a mistake to assume increased revenues would endure. Shopify cut 10% of its workforce in July, with CEO Tobi Lutke saying he was wrong to predict a permanent leap ahead of five to ten years in the growth rate of online shopping.

Amazon’s layoffs will also be significant. Proportionally, they’re on track to represent the company’s biggest workforce reduction since the 2001 dot-com bust, which hit 15% of its staff, according to the New York Times. Nonetheless, Jassy said Amazon made the right decision to scale up rapidly starting in 2020, adding that it was better to get too big than to stay too constrained to meet demand from shoppers and from sellers who use the company’s marketplace.

The slowdown shouldn’t have caught the heavyweights of e-commerce by surprise, said Andrew Lipsman, a retail analyst at Insider Intelligence. We were going to regain access to in-person stores at some point, and stimulus payments weren’t going to last forever. But even if cash-flush tech companies knew there would be an inevitable bust, they couldn’t let the opportunity to scale up and capture all our shopping dollars pass them by.

«They tend to think of it as an arms race,» Lipsman said. «When their major competitor is investing heavily, they don’t want to be the ones not doing it.»

Slowing innovation

That bitter downswing has forced Amazon to pull back on some of its flashy pet projects, like Alexa, where a large portion of the layoffs took place. While Alexa-powered devices like Echo smart speakers and displays dominate the smart home market, they’re priced to lose money. And even though Alexa made huge advances in voice recognition and AI-generated speech, the technology hasn’t succeeded in getting people to shop by voice, analysts say.

Amazon’s health care initiatives are also seeing cutbacks. The company said Amazon Care, a service that offered telehealth and in-home medical appointments, would close down at the end of 2022. (Amazon says it’s pushing forward with its purchase of One Medical, which offers primary care clinics and telehealth services).

Also on the chopping block were Amazon’s brick-and-mortar bookstores and its remaining «Four-star Stores,» which analysts say never found a purpose.

Amazon hasn’t killed the Alexa division or its health care efforts entirely, and Jassy has said the company is still betting on innovations like autonomous vehicles with its Zoox business. But the moves show Amazon is unwilling to sink quite as much money into services just for the sake of destabilizing or owning a market. That’s a contrast to its earliest approaches with selling books and music online, which Amazon pursued while taking a loss for seven years before finally turning a profit in 2001, said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst with Forrester.

«The DNA of Amazon was, ‘we’re going to lose money,'» Kodali said. Now the company must invest in things that’ll pay off sooner rather than later, she added.

And just like everything about Amazon, when the company cuts back, it does it in a big way.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for April 5, #1386

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,386 for April 5.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Still recovering from yesterday’s tricky Wordle? Today’s Wordle puzzle is a little easier, although the first letter isn’t one I often guess. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

There are two vowels and one sometimes vowel in today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle hint No. 3: Start letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with the letter F.

Wordle hint No. 4: Under the sea

Today’s Wordle answer is sometimes associated with ocean waves, and also with soap.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to something that is frothy or creamy.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is FOAMY.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, April 4, No. 1385 was KRILL.

Recent Wordle answers

March 31, No, 1381: BOOTY

April 1, No. 1382: JEWEL

April 2, No. 1383: CURSE.

April 3, No. 1384: SHEAR

Technologies

These Noise-Canceling Earbuds Do Everything I Need, and They’re Less Than Half the Price of Apple’s AirPods 4

The Earfun Air Pro 4’s passive noise cancellation helps me read in my noisy house, and they’re 20% off their already discounted price.

I enjoy reading books on my Kindle, and my favorite place to do so is stretched out on a couch in my living room. But like most busy households, my living room can get pretty loud. And since I don’t really want to yell at everyone to keep it down so Daddy can enjoy his stories, the best solution I’ve found is to wear noise-canceling earbuds while reading. I’ll wear them in combination with playing white noise or nature sounds — my current favorite playlist is 10 hours of Thunderstorm Sounds on shuffle — to maximize the effect.

I like using my over-ear Sony headphones for work, but they’re bulky, so I started looking for an affordable pair of earbuds that offer decent noise cancellation. That’s how I ended up buying the Earfun Air Pro 4s, CNET’s 2024 Editors’ Choice for affordable in-ear headphones. In short, they’re great, and the black ones cost just $64 on Amazon right now when you apply the 20% discount at checkout. (All of the other colors are down to $77 when you apply a 15% discount, which is still a good price.)

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

How these earbuds silence the noise around you

I prefer in-ear headphones because they offer active, electronic and passive noise canceling. Passive noise cancellation basically consists of plugging your ears with the rubbery tips included with the earbuds. The Earfuns fit well for me when I use the second-largest of the five swappable ear tip sizes, and they stay sealed and comfortable for hours. Sometimes I have to reseal one after I yawn or something, but that’s the case with other in-ear headphones too.

For reading, I prefer Earfun’s «Strong ANC» noise-canceling mode, which makes a big difference when blocking out the noise around you, but there are a bunch of other noise-cancellation options. The Ambient Sound function is good for when I want to pay attention to my surroundings. Overall I found the app easier to use than Sony’s and just as capable. The main difference is that Sony’s app has a variable slider for ambient sound.

The Earfun app also includes a white noise section in the app. Normally I prefer Spotify for white noise (and I download my favorite playlists for offline listening) but this feature is useful for people who don’t have another music service. It includes birdsong, waves and rainfall, all of which are short clips that repeat automatically.

Impulse Buys Under $25 That Make Surprisingly Great Gifts

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Why I chose these earbuds over AirPods

These headphones have every other feature I’d expect, including the ability to connect to two devices simultaneously and programmable touch-sensitive controls on the buds. Plus, battery life has been more than ample for me even after a marathon reading session.

There’s also a finder function if you misplace either earbud (unlike Apple FindMy, however, they have to be connected and in Bluetooth range). For actual music and voice calling quality, they sound fine, albeit not as good as my big Sonys.

I have an iPhone and briefly thought about buying Apple AirPods, but I didn’t want to spend the money. The AirPods 4 with noise cancellation cost $115 more than these Earfuns and have an open-ear design, so they rely entirely on the electronic (not passive) method. The AirPods Pro 2 are in-ear and superb, but I didn’t want to spend $250 on a pair of secondary headphones.

Yes, I could probably save some money on an even less expensive pair of in-ear noise-canceling headphones, but I’m not sure I’d be as happy with their fit, long-term comfort, battery life and noise-cancellation performance. The Earfun Pro 4 buds help me relax and concentrate on my book, and for me that’s priceless.

For more savings, we’ve rounded up all the the best deals on headphones we’ve found. And if you’re getting a head-start on gift shopping for a new grad or Mother’s Day, check out our list of the best graduation gifts and best gifts for Mom.

Technologies

Why Are Switch 2 Games So Expensive? Trump’s Tariffs May Not Be Sole Factor

It still comes down to money.

Wednesday’s reveal of the Switch 2 had a lot of buzz from Nintendo surrounding its successor to the Switch. One shocking bit, though, was the high price of its games. There’s a lot of confusion, especially with news of President Donald Trump’s increased tariffs on many trading partners, including Japan.

After the Switch 2 Direct, Nintendo released the full details of the upcoming console and games on its website. The price of Mario Kart World shocked gamers and led to some disdain, as the $80 MSRP was $10 more than what most new games cost today. This led many to wonder if this would be a new normal for game prices due to Trump’s tariffs or if Nintendo was just being greedy. The answer, however, might be something completely different.

Are Nintendo Switch 2 game prices hiking?

To start, some details need to be cleared up. Some people have posted on social media that the price of Nintendo’s Switch 2 games, at least in the US, will be $90. That is incorrect, as of right now.

One X user posted Switch 2 EU prices for Mario Kart World, which start at 80 euros for a digital version and 90 euros for the physical copy. Typically, US and EU games match in price, which caused some to assume that this pricing would be the case for the US.

Nintendo Switch 2 games will be more expensive physically than digitally.
Mario Kart World will be 90 freaking euros phisically. pic.twitter.com/iXuRwzlFqH

— Centro LEAKS (@CentroLeaks) April 2, 2025

US retailers, however, already posted their Switch 2 game prices, and Nintendo-published games are listed at $80.

Will Trump’s tariffs cause the Switch 2 to cost more?

As for Trump’s tariffs, that is unlikely to be a driver of this price bump. Tariffs are not applied to digital goods, and when the prices were published, there were no tariffs on Japan. Plus, games are similarly expensive in other countries like Canada and the UK.

With that cleared up, why are Nintendo games on the Switch 2 so expensive? One likely reason is game storage.

Read More: All the Nintendo Games You Can Update to Switch 2 for Free

The Switch 2 uses what Nintendo calls game-key cards, which are Switch 2 cartridges that don’t have all the game data on the cartridge itself. This helps save on production costs as storage is expensive. The original Switch cartridges went up to 32GB of storage, which doesn’t seem like a lot these days, with some games taking up 100GB or more of storage, but this is for the original Switch. Only a few games, like The Witcher 3, went above 32GB because the graphics for the Switch weren’t on the high end like with a PC, PS5 or Xbox Series console, where a Witcher 3 install size starts at 50GB.

Switch 2 games are going to be bigger in size — there is little doubt about it. CD Projekt Red confirmed it would put its Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on one 64GB cartridge, and there will likely be other games to surpass that 64GB. With the max size of the cartridge doubling in size, it adds to the price of the physical card, as not only does storage have to be bigger, but they will need to transfer data faster. That can get more expensive for physical copies, unlike optical discs, which are still the same price whether it has 20GB or 100GB on the disc.

What does all this mean for gamers?

This leads to a dilemma for publishers: Put the entire game on the physical card and sell it at a loss, increase the price of the physical copy with the full game on it or use the game-key card to have a card with minimal storage, requiring gamers to download the entire game.

Read More: The 17 Best Nintendo Switch Games Right Now

It appears that Nintendo went with door No. 2. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, knowing the company. Anyone who wants to save money on games knows that Nintendo will seldom bring the price down of its own games. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for example, is 8 years old and is still full price on Nintendo’s website.

According to an industry analysis from Niko Partners, this new pricing could become the new normal in a couple of years when it comes to physical cartridges.

«While there has been some sticker shock regarding the price of games increasing from $60 to $70 or $80, these price points are set to become industry standard over the next two years, especially so for Nintendo first-party games,» Niko Partners said in a statement Wednesday. «One reason for the higher price is the increased cost of the new and faster Game Cards themselves, with higher capacities being more expensive to manufacture than a PS5 Blu-ray disc.»

Nintendo didn’t respond to a request for comment about the higher price of its games.

That said, this doesn’t explain the lower price of Donkey Kong Bananza, which comes out in July; that’s listed on Nintendo’s site for $70. This could mean the game isn’t using a larger storage card, but that can’t be said for sure until the game comes out. It’s unclear how things will change in the future.