Amazon Is (Not Very) Despondent After Fire TV Sells Out

Amazon is really, really good at getting stuff to you really fast. Except with its own devices: It seems to constantly run out of them, right after they go on sale.

Good thing the press is there to document the outages, which of course are good problems to have.

Back in 2007, for instance, Amazon’s first batch of Kindle e-readers sold out in 5.5 hours. Kindles sold out again in 2008, and then again in 2009, after Amazon rolled out a super-sized version, even though that one never seemed to catch on. There was another new Kindle sell-out in 2010. And 2012, too.

Jeff Bezos didn’t have that problem with the Kindle Fire tablets he’s been pushing for the past few years — the only times those have sold out were when the company was winding down inventory in advance of a new launch.

But now, just a few days after its April 2 launch, Amazon says it is out of new Kindle Fire TV boxes. Amazon’s site, which continues to promote the Apple TV rival on its home page, says new ones won’t be available for seven days. Amazon PR rep Kinley Pearsall is vaguer, though possibly more optimistic, via email: “We’re thrilled with the customer response to Fire TV so far — we’re building more as quickly as we can and we’re expecting more inventory next week.”

Until then, would-be customers will just have to occupy themselves by watching Gary Busey extol the virtues of the Fire’s voice control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHoNQrxG_8M

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

We're here to shed some clarity

One of our core beliefs here at Vox is that everyone needs and deserves access to the information that helps them understand the world, regardless of whether they can pay for a subscription. With the 2024 election on the horizon, more people are turning to us for clear and balanced explanations of the issues and policies at stake. We’re so grateful that we’re on track to hit 85,000 contributions to the Vox Contributions program before the end of the year, which in turn helps us keep this work free. We need to add 2,500 contributions this month to hit that goal. Will you make a contribution today to help us hit this goal and support our policy coverage? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via