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So while we prattle about ‘the new normal’, we need to recognise that there was nothing ‘normal’ about the Holocene. Expert analysis of how human civilisation developed during the Holocene’s 10,000-year benign spell is only now becoming common knowledge. The geneticist David Reich leads the way, with his myth-busting account Who We Are and How We Got Here (2018), using research based on ancient DNA to link human movement with language development. Such deep knowledge of the period argues that our problem is not confined to post-industrial-era CO2 emissions (global warming, in any case, probably began with forest clearance for early agriculture), but insists that the Holocene was a freakish gift to humanity that we have exploited and taken for granted. We are now assisting at its funeral.

Amazon is announcing general availability in the U.S. for in-skill purchasing, which allows the creator of a skill to sell content to an Alexa user–both one-off purchases and monthly or yearly subscriptions, with the entire transaction handled inside the skill via voice on a device such as an Echo or a third-party Alexa-compatible gadget. (As with mobile app stores, developers get 70% of the price paid by users, and Amazon collects 30% as its reward for facilitating the transaction.) In addition, the company is opening up the ability for sellers of real-world goods and services to receive payment via Alexa using the Amazon Pay service; early adopters include 1-800-Flowers, TGI Friday’s, and Atom Tickets.

With Alexa’s new monetization features just reaching broad availability, it’s too early to gauge their long-term impact on the platform. But for the moment, at least, they give developers an incentive to devote even more resources to Amazon’s voice service rather than divert attention to its most formidable rival, Google Assistant. Google just launched a fund to invest in Google Assistant-centric startups–reminiscent of the Alexa Fund that Amazon established back in 2015–but it hasn’t yet given Assistant commerce features like the ones Alexa is adding.

“We’re at this inflection point with Alexa,” Rabuchin says. “We’ve laid the foundation for the voice economy, and now, by opening up all these monetization capabilities, we think it’s going to really take off in the next year.” The idea that an epoch-shifting phenomenon like Alexa hasn’t yet taken off is a bit of a mind-bender–but whatever happens next, it’s clearly entering a new phase.