My prediction is that 3 will not happen, and what happens in its place is going to perpetuate the tech giant oligopoly. With the tech giants getting into the bu

My prediction is that 3 will not happen, and what happens in its place is going to perpetuate the tech giant oligopoly. With the tech giants getting into the business of collecting any remaining missing data points using IoT, it is only a matter of time before most of us are inside houses which are periodically sending data to servers at Amazon, Google et. al. Their marketing might of course is hard to match. But they are also more likely to know more about your present needs with the trove of data at their disposal. Which cloud provider is going to match that? Respected experts like Andrew Ng talk about data being a 'defensible barrier'[1] . Under this euphemism lies practices such as 'creating products which do not produce revenue but are intended for data collection'. Yes, folks at HN have known about these things for a long time, but my point is the stamp of endorsement for these disturbing practices from people who are regarded as authority figures, and the general absence of debate around these practices. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eJhcxfYR4I&t=21m30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eJhcxfYR4I&t=21m30s The cloud providers and their ilk will be quickly driven out of business with revenue-less products which 'complete the picture' for the tech giants. https://www.fastcompany.com/3061546/Amazon-dash-buttons https://www.fastcompany.com/3061546/Amazon-dash-buttons Self-hosted is possible. But that is going to make an explosion in IoT's popularity unlikely.