6 ms·

I cannot even think of a single person in any of my networks of people who would buy this and put it in their home. It has "hell no" written all over it. It's a

by dpcan 7y ago

I cannot even think of a single person in any of my networks of people who would buy this and put it in their home. It has "hell no" written all over it. It's almost arrogant or bizarre that they would try to launch such a product given how people feel about Facebook and privacy. I suppose it's simply to satisfy shareholders who think Facebook needs to compete in this market???? It's the Zune of the Living-Room Assistant space in my opinion.

tcd 7y ago
People have purchased - and installed - Google Home (and Mini's) and Alexa's in their homes. They think they're "cute", and offer a valuable service to them. They are a microphone controlled by data raping giants. People use "Assistants" and enable full tracking technologies on their devices ("See how great it is Google has your every location on a map for the last decade"). People have not only accepted but embraced a full surveillance and tracking society; even if YOU don't accept it, you're part of it, people may add your contact to their phone that will be gobbled up in seconds by Facebook/Google/et al. People don't care. End of story.
- nannal 7y ago
  They don't need to deduce anything, I'm already doing that when I visit the bathroom.
- danShumway 7y ago
  I don't think it is. The difference is that Gmail/Amazon aren't hated the same way as Facebook is. People aren't smart about surveillance, they're not smart enough to realize that giving Instagram access to their phone is a bad idea. But, there are 2 perfectly capable home assistants on the market today that (right or wrong) aren't part of the same consumer-level narrative about privacy, and people like simple, straightforward, black-and-white narratives, like "Facebook cameras in your house are watching your child so that targeted ads can turn them into a nazi." That's a simple story, it's easy to remember and think about. Even ordinary, privacy-uneducated users like that story. It's totally feasible to me that this device will flop due to privacy concerns. Scanning around quickly online, I can't see a single positive review (even from mainstream publications) that doesn't end with, "but of course Facebook is evil and you'd have to be stupid to trust them with a camera in your house." I suspect Facebook just lost the narrative on this. They should have called it "Instagram Portal", and then the consumer situation would be completely different. Most of my siblings have Alexa devices in their house. It's a privacy nightmare, but they don't care. Even so, none of them would be dumb enough to buy a Facebook portal. It's not even a sacrifice -- Alexa/Google work with more devices and have more features.
  - matz1 7y ago
    >People aren't smart about surveillance, they're not smart enough to realize that giving Instagram access to their phone is a bad idea I've seen this argument a lot, the issue is not people are not smart enough but people have different value toward privacy. I understand tech and yet I'm fine and even supporting this kind of tech. I understand its really hard and sucks to be in the side where you think is nightmare but other people think is not an issue. But thats the reality, people can have different value.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    Why is owning an Echo device any more of a privacy nightmare than owning a smartphone? The Echo is not always listening/recording; it is activated by a wake word.
    - input_sh 7y ago
      So, in other words, Echo is always listening for that wake word?
      - umanwizard 7y ago
        Sort of. AFAIK it's listening with a dedicated circuit that only recognizes the specific word, not with a general-purpose listening device. Again, how is this different from a smartphone that will wake up when you say "Hey Siri" ?
    - myrakle 7y ago
      There were multiple instances of Echo waking up when the user didn't utter the wake word.
      - umanwizard 7y ago
        And smartphones are immune to misrecognizing "Hey, Siri" ?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
CivBase 7y ago
> It's the Zune of the Living-Room Assistant space in my opinion. I loved my Zune. I wouldn't touch a Portal with a 39.5' pole.
netsharc 7y ago
I've seen TV ads for Portal and one version of it is a grandpa telling us viewers how great Portal is for connecting him and his grandkids, showing off the auto-pan feature (the kids ran around their living room and the device's camera followed them). So I guess they're targeting non-techie elderlies for one. I wonder if you're just in a bubble when you say what you say. I'm in my city's FB group for youths and one time they were doing some excursion where tickets were age-dependant (discount for under 26s). The admin asked the people wanting tickets to post their names and DOB, and there were maybe 50 replies to that post with the asked information...
bogwog 7y ago
The average person tends not to care too much about their privacy. It's an abstract problem, and it'd take an extreme like video evidence of a Facebook employee jacking it to a nude photo they discretely captured from your webcam while you were in the bathroom. Just look at the Oculus Rift. The "sensors" are literally webcams connected to a Facebook app that you point at your living room, your bedroom, your kids, etc. Yet people see a new toy and none of that matters. Even tech-savvy and privacy conscious people will contort their world views to justify the purchase.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  > The average person tends not to care too much about their privacy. This is not quite accurate. The average person cares a lot about privacy, but understands privacy differently from the HN/tech/anti-Facebook zeitgeist. People care about privacy from people they know. They care about whether their parents, significant other, coworkers, and friends can see things they intend for them not to. Most people don't care about whether private information about them is collected and stored on servers without any human ever looking at it (even if, hypothetically, some humans with nefarious intent could look at it someday). But this is an extremely narrow interpretation of "privacy".
JensRex 7y ago
I agree, but it's not very different from Alexa or Google Home, and people are buying those, for some reason.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  Why is owning an Amazon Echo any worse for privacy than owning a smartphone?
zhobbs 7y ago
I'm considering purchasing one. In general, I value convenience and personalization over privacy. I completely don't relate to the idea of relevant ads being a bad thing. Anyways, as someone who spends a lot of time panning a laptop or iPad to track a toddler who is FaceTiming grandma, this device solves an important problem for us.
- monkeynotes 7y ago
  I think this is the truth of the world we live in. People want this stuff so bad that they are willing to give away a lot in exchange. The other component is apathy, many people are just resigned to the fact that they will be surveilled one way or another. I can foresee huge implications for all of this, it doesn't take much to get from here to using these devices to aid law enforcement. I know the argument is 'if you have nothing to hide... it keeps the kids safe...' but it all smells of a conformist dystopia. Edit: I have a bunch of Google Homes, I count myself in the apathetic group, sadly.
  - fossuser 7y ago
    I think there are also acceptable trade-offs. The video is encrypted and content from the call cannot be used. If this was not the case I wouldn't buy it. The other things they say they'll use from it are in line with what I already expect from having a FB account in the first place. The portal even has a built in camera cover/off switch in hardware.
- starbugs 7y ago
  The problem is it doesn't end with relevant ads. It doesn't even end with Cambridge Analytica. The business model of Facebook is absolutely clear. You are the product and the currency is you. If they can convert that to real $ they'll do it by any means without thinking about the implications. FB has proven again and again that they are incapable of considering or do not want to consider the wider implications of their actions. It's absolutely toxic and your actions today will define the future your children will be living in tomorrow. I personally think that it would be great if that future wasn't 1984 on steroids.
cryptozeus 7y ago
You are clearly not their target audience. Really zune if living room space, come on man.
- schwartzworld 7y ago
  Zune was awesome. It was a phenomenal device, and anybody who owned one would tell you that. https://medium.com/@shiriendamra/why-the-zune-failed-132784522ff0 https://medium.com/@shiriendamra/why-the-zune-failed-1327845... TLDR: iPod already dominated the market, and the zune wasn't marketed aggressively enough.
Havoc 7y ago
>I cannot even think of a single person in any of my networks of people who would buy this and put it in their home And yet Alexa, Siri etc are fine to many

by dpcan 7y ago

tcd 7y ago

People have purchased - and installed - Google Home (and Mini's) and Alexa's in their homes. They think they're "cute", and offer a valuable service to them. They are a microphone controlled by data raping giants. People use "Assistants" and enable full tracking technologies on their devices ("See how great it is Google has your every location on a map for the last decade"). People have not only accepted but embraced a full surveillance and tracking society; even if YOU don't accept it, you're part of it, people may add your contact to their phone that will be gobbled up in seconds by Facebook/Google/et al. People don't care. End of story.

nannal 7y ago
They don't need to deduce anything, I'm already doing that when I visit the bathroom.
danShumway 7y ago
I don't think it is. The difference is that Gmail/Amazon aren't hated the same way as Facebook is. People aren't smart about surveillance, they're not smart enough to realize that giving Instagram access to their phone is a bad idea. But, there are 2 perfectly capable home assistants on the market today that (right or wrong) aren't part of the same consumer-level narrative about privacy, and people like simple, straightforward, black-and-white narratives, like "Facebook cameras in your house are watching your child so that targeted ads can turn them into a nazi." That's a simple story, it's easy to remember and think about. Even ordinary, privacy-uneducated users like that story. It's totally feasible to me that this device will flop due to privacy concerns. Scanning around quickly online, I can't see a single positive review (even from mainstream publications) that doesn't end with, "but of course Facebook is evil and you'd have to be stupid to trust them with a camera in your house." I suspect Facebook just lost the narrative on this. They should have called it "Instagram Portal", and then the consumer situation would be completely different. Most of my siblings have Alexa devices in their house. It's a privacy nightmare, but they don't care. Even so, none of them would be dumb enough to buy a Facebook portal. It's not even a sacrifice -- Alexa/Google work with more devices and have more features.
- matz1 7y ago
  >People aren't smart about surveillance, they're not smart enough to realize that giving Instagram access to their phone is a bad idea I've seen this argument a lot, the issue is not people are not smart enough but people have different value toward privacy. I understand tech and yet I'm fine and even supporting this kind of tech. I understand its really hard and sucks to be in the side where you think is nightmare but other people think is not an issue. But thats the reality, people can have different value.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  Why is owning an Echo device any more of a privacy nightmare than owning a smartphone? The Echo is not always listening/recording; it is activated by a wake word.
  - input_sh 7y ago
    So, in other words, Echo is always listening for that wake word?
    - umanwizard 7y ago
      Sort of. AFAIK it's listening with a dedicated circuit that only recognizes the specific word, not with a general-purpose listening device. Again, how is this different from a smartphone that will wake up when you say "Hey Siri" ?
  - myrakle 7y ago
    There were multiple instances of Echo waking up when the user didn't utter the wake word.
    - umanwizard 7y ago
      And smartphones are immune to misrecognizing "Hey, Siri" ?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

CivBase 7y ago

> It's the Zune of the Living-Room Assistant space in my opinion. I loved my Zune. I wouldn't touch a Portal with a 39.5' pole.

netsharc 7y ago

I've seen TV ads for Portal and one version of it is a grandpa telling us viewers how great Portal is for connecting him and his grandkids, showing off the auto-pan feature (the kids ran around their living room and the device's camera followed them). So I guess they're targeting non-techie elderlies for one. I wonder if you're just in a bubble when you say what you say. I'm in my city's FB group for youths and one time they were doing some excursion where tickets were age-dependant (discount for under 26s). The admin asked the people wanting tickets to post their names and DOB, and there were maybe 50 replies to that post with the asked information...

bogwog 7y ago

The average person tends not to care too much about their privacy. It's an abstract problem, and it'd take an extreme like video evidence of a Facebook employee jacking it to a nude photo they discretely captured from your webcam while you were in the bathroom. Just look at the Oculus Rift. The "sensors" are literally webcams connected to a Facebook app that you point at your living room, your bedroom, your kids, etc. Yet people see a new toy and none of that matters. Even tech-savvy and privacy conscious people will contort their world views to justify the purchase.

umanwizard 7y ago
> The average person tends not to care too much about their privacy. This is not quite accurate. The average person cares a lot about privacy, but understands privacy differently from the HN/tech/anti-Facebook zeitgeist. People care about privacy from people they know. They care about whether their parents, significant other, coworkers, and friends can see things they intend for them not to. Most people don't care about whether private information about them is collected and stored on servers without any human ever looking at it (even if, hypothetically, some humans with nefarious intent could look at it someday). But this is an extremely narrow interpretation of "privacy".

JensRex 7y ago

I agree, but it's not very different from Alexa or Google Home, and people are buying those, for some reason.

umanwizard 7y ago
Why is owning an Amazon Echo any worse for privacy than owning a smartphone?

zhobbs 7y ago

I'm considering purchasing one. In general, I value convenience and personalization over privacy. I completely don't relate to the idea of relevant ads being a bad thing. Anyways, as someone who spends a lot of time panning a laptop or iPad to track a toddler who is FaceTiming grandma, this device solves an important problem for us.

monkeynotes 7y ago
I think this is the truth of the world we live in. People want this stuff so bad that they are willing to give away a lot in exchange. The other component is apathy, many people are just resigned to the fact that they will be surveilled one way or another. I can foresee huge implications for all of this, it doesn't take much to get from here to using these devices to aid law enforcement. I know the argument is 'if you have nothing to hide... it keeps the kids safe...' but it all smells of a conformist dystopia. Edit: I have a bunch of Google Homes, I count myself in the apathetic group, sadly.
- fossuser 7y ago
  I think there are also acceptable trade-offs. The video is encrypted and content from the call cannot be used. If this was not the case I wouldn't buy it. The other things they say they'll use from it are in line with what I already expect from having a FB account in the first place. The portal even has a built in camera cover/off switch in hardware.
starbugs 7y ago
The problem is it doesn't end with relevant ads. It doesn't even end with Cambridge Analytica. The business model of Facebook is absolutely clear. You are the product and the currency is you. If they can convert that to real $ they'll do it by any means without thinking about the implications. FB has proven again and again that they are incapable of considering or do not want to consider the wider implications of their actions. It's absolutely toxic and your actions today will define the future your children will be living in tomorrow. I personally think that it would be great if that future wasn't 1984 on steroids.

cryptozeus 7y ago

You are clearly not their target audience. Really zune if living room space, come on man.

schwartzworld 7y ago
Zune was awesome. It was a phenomenal device, and anybody who owned one would tell you that. https://medium.com/@shiriendamra/why-the-zune-failed-132784522ff0 https://medium.com/@shiriendamra/why-the-zune-failed-1327845... TLDR: iPod already dominated the market, and the zune wasn't marketed aggressively enough.

Havoc 7y ago

>I cannot even think of a single person in any of my networks of people who would buy this and put it in their home And yet Alexa, Siri etc are fine to many