I think a lot of normies still think that when they buy a smart appliance they are buying an appliance like from yesteryear, except with more features. In reality they are buying a computer shaped like an appliance of yesteryear. Your smartphone? That's not a phone, it's a computer shaped like a phone. Smart TV? Computer shaped like a TV. Smart watch? Computer shaped like a watch.
This brings with it all the advantages and disadvantages of a computer. Except that the user is not given any of the advantages they have with a desktop or laptop computer. Companies get away with it because in the normie's mind the smart watch is a watch first and foremost, and who would expect to log into a terminal on a watch? Why would you need security updated for a wristwatch? This is how artificially restricted technology is slowly being introduced into people's live, one appliance at a time.
The term "smart appliance" has changed radically since the 1960s [0]; it didn't necessarily mean "ubiquitous connectivity, data collection, building a profile on the occupants and monetizing it with advertisers/data brokers". We only end up at that through decades of legislative inaction.
Your second point is about the extent to which manufacturers are allowed lock their product behind proprietary interfaces (protected by the excesses of the DMCA, and lack of compliance with Right to Repair). Remember the 2023 bankruptcy of e-bike manufacturer VanMoof, locking out its customers, even ones who had purchased it? Probably legislatures will only pass meaningful consumer laws after a wave of smart bankruptcies and data asset transfers. If even then. Perhaps one flashpoint will be the rise in subprime auto lenders using "kill switches" as a high-tech repossession alternative. How are consumers protected when the company itself fails (as is currently happening with Tricolor [1], likely followed by others)?
But one could argue that a computer is just a cheaper implementation of the yesteryears discrete electronics.
Which was itself a cheaper implementation of old school mechanical gears, switches and timing wheels, etc.
A locked down computer, could have been mechanical for all the user cares.
Fixing a dishwasher a while my dad told me that back in the day, they operates with a timing wheel that switched between different stages, and they had a lot of wires.
Todays dishwashers are cheaper and have fewer mechanical control parts (if any).
I remind myself multiple times per week of the ways I compromise by letting questionable service companies into my life. “I really should self-serve this.” — I guess people who don’t fantasise of self-sufficiency to the nth degree, and don’t get angry at being force-fed straight uninterrupted ads, just think of the immediate upside.
IIRC, when it was launched, with the camera, the Web page had a top image of the product sitting on a bedroom night stand, naturally pointed at the owner's bed.
Either the marketing people weren't very aware of privacy (specifically, the chatter around that time, about covering webcams against hackers, and about whether adtech was listening in on device mics), or they have a dark sense of humor.
HiPhish|4 months ago
This brings with it all the advantages and disadvantages of a computer. Except that the user is not given any of the advantages they have with a desktop or laptop computer. Companies get away with it because in the normie's mind the smart watch is a watch first and foremost, and who would expect to log into a terminal on a watch? Why would you need security updated for a wristwatch? This is how artificially restricted technology is slowly being introduced into people's live, one appliance at a time.
smcin|4 months ago
Your second point is about the extent to which manufacturers are allowed lock their product behind proprietary interfaces (protected by the excesses of the DMCA, and lack of compliance with Right to Repair). Remember the 2023 bankruptcy of e-bike manufacturer VanMoof, locking out its customers, even ones who had purchased it? Probably legislatures will only pass meaningful consumer laws after a wave of smart bankruptcies and data asset transfers. If even then. Perhaps one flashpoint will be the rise in subprime auto lenders using "kill switches" as a high-tech repossession alternative. How are consumers protected when the company itself fails (as is currently happening with Tricolor [1], likely followed by others)?
[0]: https://www.impulselabs.com/blog/the-past-and-future-of-smar...
[1]: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/a-big-auto-lender-went-bankrupt...
jopsen|4 months ago
But one could argue that a computer is just a cheaper implementation of the yesteryears discrete electronics. Which was itself a cheaper implementation of old school mechanical gears, switches and timing wheels, etc.
A locked down computer, could have been mechanical for all the user cares.
Fixing a dishwasher a while my dad told me that back in the day, they operates with a timing wheel that switched between different stages, and they had a lot of wires.
Todays dishwashers are cheaper and have fewer mechanical control parts (if any).
shmeeed|4 months ago
sshine|4 months ago
I remind myself multiple times per week of the ways I compromise by letting questionable service companies into my life. “I really should self-serve this.” — I guess people who don’t fantasise of self-sufficiency to the nth degree, and don’t get angry at being force-fed straight uninterrupted ads, just think of the immediate upside.
neilv|4 months ago
Either the marketing people weren't very aware of privacy (specifically, the chatter around that time, about covering webcams against hackers, and about whether adtech was listening in on device mics), or they have a dark sense of humor.