7 ms·

These cloud-only cameras should be free.

by awqrre 11y ago

dguaraglia 11y ago
It's exactly the cloud part that costs money to run. That'd be like saying "this streaming services where you never receive a hard copy of your content should be free".
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  Ok, but you don't have to buy a Netflix CD and install it and then pay a monthly fee. You have to buy the Dropcam, and then on top of that you have to buy the service (or else your Dropcam is a brick). No thanks. At least Arlo has a free tier.
  - dguaraglia 11y ago
    Actually, your Dropcam/Nestcam will be happy to give you a live feed for free. Also, you get a 3 month trial. In fact, I'd argue that buying a camera that provides "free" service forever is buying into a trap of some sort. There's simply no way to make money running a free service (it's the first law of thermoeconomics: money cannot be generated by providing a service that costs > $0 at a cost point of $0.)
    - Domenic_S 11y ago
      Nest thermostat doesn't have a subscription fee ;) Besides, Arlo's freemium so I don't really get your argument (you get 7 days of recording free, up to 5 cameras; $$ if you want more of either). I like the idea of Dropcam, but $200/camera PLUS a monthly fee I can't swallow. It's an expensive razor with expensive blades. But, I'm just some random schmo and not a millionaire who sold his company to Google, so feel free to disagree!
      - dguaraglia 11y ago
        The way to think about it is selling devices (money is made from bulk selling) vs. selling subscriptions (RMM.) If you are going to run a business with a cloud component, you need to either embed the cost of running that cloud in the price of the device or charge for the service. The Nest thermostat (pre-acquisition) fit the first model, Dropcam (pre-acquisition) fit the second. The camera was expensive because that's what it cost to make a camera with those specs. For comparison, a GoPro that ran basically on the same hardware - slightly different lenses, a sturdier case - was priced at around $400. My guess is Arlo is burning investor money for projected growth, which is a perfectly valid trade-off (for a while.) Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, it was an "expensive-razor-with-expensive-blades" situation, but over time we estimated the razor would get cheaper and the blades (for the same price) would cook your meals and wash the dishes. For the record, I'm far from a millionaire entrepreneur. I'm just lucky enough to have worked at a great company that had a solid product and got sold for a good amount of money. Can't complain about the outcome, but you won't see me buying a mansion in LA any time soon ;)
      - dgacmu 11y ago
        It's only a monthly fee if you want recording. I have two dropcams, neither of which has a subscription attached, that I've been using for over two years now. I think I activated recording for one month of the entire period, when I wanted to see what was eating my garden, but the rest of the time, one acts as our "let's make sure the house didn't burn down on vacation" cam, and the other is a glorified baby cam, both of which we just check on-demand. I recognize that I've bought a product that might stop working at Dropcam/Nest/Google's whim, but Google, at least, I trust to give reasonable notice for sunsetting. I used the dropcam to replace a homebrewed IP cam setup + dyndns + yadda yadda + recording to my synology. It turns out that free wasn't very free -- it took too much of my time on an ongoing basis. Having the dropcam just work was worth the price (and the risk of it becoming a paperweight after three or four years -- which it hasn't yet!)
  - robbiemitchell 11y ago
    Why so indignant about paying for things? Hardware costs money, services costs money. There are humans working to make these things exist. Just like you (I bet).
    - Domenic_S 11y ago
      Things aren't priced based on what they cost to make, they're priced based on what people will pay. To me it feels like being nickel & dimed and honestly I'm sick of everything being a subscription (I've written on this elsewhere). At least with Spotify I still own my computer and headphones if I decide to cancel -- Drop/Nestcams are essentially $200 bricks if the internet goes down or you decide not to pay. My Nest thermostat still works without an internet connection. Cell phones are a good example, you can either pay $0 up front and a larger subscription fee in a contract, or buy the phone up front and pay a smaller, no-contract subscription. Dropcams are the worst of both worlds. (side note: I saw no mention of subscriptions on any of Nestcam's top level pages on their site.) Obviously plenty of others think it's a fine deal, so I'm just the dissenting minority opinion :)
      - dguaraglia 11y ago
        Exactly! You are the unhappy minority, and as much as I feel your pain, you are irrelevant business wise (sorry!) I know that I'm personally very irrational when deciding prices: I find paying for HBO Now ($15 a month) an outrage, but will go and spend $20 on a cinema ticket without batting an eyelid. Heck, an Uber ride from the cinema because I'm too lazy is ~$10. Throw in a soda, and every trip to the cinema is about $40. I'm getting around 10 to 15 hours of entertainment out of the HBO subscription, which at ~$1 an hour is a much better deal than going to the movies, but no amount of rationalizing it will make it feel good. There's clearly enough people that consider the $10 a month price "good enough" to be comfortable with it.
- awqrre 11y ago
  Google monetizes your "private" video feeds and you pay them to do it ...

These cloud-only cameras should be free.

by awqrre 11y ago

These cloud-only cameras should be free.

It's exactly the cloud part that costs money to run. That'd be like saying "this streaming services where you never receive a hard copy of your content should be free".

Domenic_S 11y ago
Ok, but you don't have to buy a Netflix CD and install it and then pay a monthly fee. You have to buy the Dropcam, and then on top of that you have to buy the service (or else your Dropcam is a brick). No thanks. At least Arlo has a free tier.
- dguaraglia 11y ago
  Actually, your Dropcam/Nestcam will be happy to give you a live feed for free. Also, you get a 3 month trial. In fact, I'd argue that buying a camera that provides "free" service forever is buying into a trap of some sort. There's simply no way to make money running a free service (it's the first law of thermoeconomics: money cannot be generated by providing a service that costs > $0 at a cost point of $0.)
  - Domenic_S 11y ago
    Nest thermostat doesn't have a subscription fee ;) Besides, Arlo's freemium so I don't really get your argument (you get 7 days of recording free, up to 5 cameras; $$ if you want more of either). I like the idea of Dropcam, but $200/camera PLUS a monthly fee I can't swallow. It's an expensive razor with expensive blades. But, I'm just some random schmo and not a millionaire who sold his company to Google, so feel free to disagree!
    - dguaraglia 11y ago
      The way to think about it is selling devices (money is made from bulk selling) vs. selling subscriptions (RMM.) If you are going to run a business with a cloud component, you need to either embed the cost of running that cloud in the price of the device or charge for the service. The Nest thermostat (pre-acquisition) fit the first model, Dropcam (pre-acquisition) fit the second. The camera was expensive because that's what it cost to make a camera with those specs. For comparison, a GoPro that ran basically on the same hardware - slightly different lenses, a sturdier case - was priced at around $400. My guess is Arlo is burning investor money for projected growth, which is a perfectly valid trade-off (for a while.) Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, it was an "expensive-razor-with-expensive-blades" situation, but over time we estimated the razor would get cheaper and the blades (for the same price) would cook your meals and wash the dishes. For the record, I'm far from a millionaire entrepreneur. I'm just lucky enough to have worked at a great company that had a solid product and got sold for a good amount of money. Can't complain about the outcome, but you won't see me buying a mansion in LA any time soon ;)
    - dgacmu 11y ago
      It's only a monthly fee if you want recording. I have two dropcams, neither of which has a subscription attached, that I've been using for over two years now. I think I activated recording for one month of the entire period, when I wanted to see what was eating my garden, but the rest of the time, one acts as our "let's make sure the house didn't burn down on vacation" cam, and the other is a glorified baby cam, both of which we just check on-demand. I recognize that I've bought a product that might stop working at Dropcam/Nest/Google's whim, but Google, at least, I trust to give reasonable notice for sunsetting. I used the dropcam to replace a homebrewed IP cam setup + dyndns + yadda yadda + recording to my synology. It turns out that free wasn't very free -- it took too much of my time on an ongoing basis. Having the dropcam just work was worth the price (and the risk of it becoming a paperweight after three or four years -- which it hasn't yet!)
- robbiemitchell 11y ago
  Why so indignant about paying for things? Hardware costs money, services costs money. There are humans working to make these things exist. Just like you (I bet).
  - Domenic_S 11y ago
    Things aren't priced based on what they cost to make, they're priced based on what people will pay. To me it feels like being nickel & dimed and honestly I'm sick of everything being a subscription (I've written on this elsewhere). At least with Spotify I still own my computer and headphones if I decide to cancel -- Drop/Nestcams are essentially $200 bricks if the internet goes down or you decide not to pay. My Nest thermostat still works without an internet connection. Cell phones are a good example, you can either pay $0 up front and a larger subscription fee in a contract, or buy the phone up front and pay a smaller, no-contract subscription. Dropcams are the worst of both worlds. (side note: I saw no mention of subscriptions on any of Nestcam's top level pages on their site.) Obviously plenty of others think it's a fine deal, so I'm just the dissenting minority opinion :)
    - dguaraglia 11y ago
      Exactly! You are the unhappy minority, and as much as I feel your pain, you are irrelevant business wise (sorry!) I know that I'm personally very irrational when deciding prices: I find paying for HBO Now ($15 a month) an outrage, but will go and spend $20 on a cinema ticket without batting an eyelid. Heck, an Uber ride from the cinema because I'm too lazy is ~$10. Throw in a soda, and every trip to the cinema is about $40. I'm getting around 10 to 15 hours of entertainment out of the HBO subscription, which at ~$1 an hour is a much better deal than going to the movies, but no amount of rationalizing it will make it feel good. There's clearly enough people that consider the $10 a month price "good enough" to be comfortable with it.
awqrre 11y ago
Google monetizes your "private" video feeds and you pay them to do it ...