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The article describes the reason why this is opt-out as such: > To be fair, there's a good reason it did. A mesh network of devices requires, well, a mesh. Tha

The article describes the reason why this is opt-out as such: > To be fair, there's a good reason it did. A mesh network of devices requires, well, a mesh. That means Amazon needs as many devices as possible to have the feature turned on. If it required you to enable it on your own, Amazon knows that almost no one would. So Amazon's business reasons are "good reasons", but my privacy/bandwidth/etc. reasons are secondary at best. This sums up the relationship between companies and their customers in the modern tech industry: You take what we'll give you, and you'll like it. At some point we're going to have to come up with a concept like "informed consent" for these things.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
I wonder what would be a good solution here, if you really wanted to offer something of value (without treating your users as a product), that depended on the users opting in? Most people won't opt in, out of convenience, it's pretty much a fact of life. You could incentivize them - say, pay them for being a part of the network and performing a service for others. But a dishonest vendor could just make the purchase price higher by the amount they expect to pay out to the user over service's lifetime. The inherent flexibility/relativity of prices seems to be making it too easy for businesses to scam the customers in general. "Ad subsidizing", "razor-and-blades" model, fake paybacks... is there even a way to ensure that a business that pays you something with one hand, doesn't try to take it back with the other one?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > is there even a way to ensure that a business that pays you something with one hand, doesn't try to take it back with the other one? Hold tighter when they try to take it back. No there is no way to ensure that businesses don't try to maximize profits. Its the same reason you want the thing of value for lowest cost.
- smolder 5y ago
  To get what we want out of businesses, we'd need an intelligence behind the buying power. Supply side holds all the cards for steering consumer tech, because buyers aren't generally informed and coordinated enough to flex their collective control, unlike on supply side where everything is super consolidated. We've got no "buyers unions", the big brands are basically unavoidable to average consumers, so big brands do what they want.
- jjav 5y ago
  > I wonder what would be a good solution here, if you really wanted to offer something of value (without treating your users as a product), that depended on the users opting in? Certainly asking for permission and paying for it if permission granted, for a start. Imagine in the physical world if some company decided they need water for their own benefit, so they'll take it by filling buckets from everyones front lawn hoses. That is unambiguously called theft. There shouldn't be any gray area in the electronic world where theft of bandwidth by amazon could be considered anything other than what it is.
flavius29663 5y ago
I would be fine with it if they offered to pay up. Say, popup a message in the next update of the Alexa app asking me: "do you want to allow our device to participate in this mesh network? It will use a little bit of your internet but you'll get 1 dollar credit in Amazon purchases each month." Hell, even make it 2 dollars of digital content. At least give me the choice.
- lxgr 5y ago
  A nice middle ground would have been to make participation a condition for using your own client devices with the network, i.e. you can only register a Tile if you agree to participating in Sidewalk with your linked Amazon account. That would make adoption much harder, though – a lot more people have just an Echo device than an Echo device and a Tile.
- tolbish 5y ago
  If this technology is going to exist, it needs competitors or things will get ugly quickly.
  - lxgr 5y ago
    There is competition: Helium seems to be doing a very similar thing (although "on the blockchain" and with its own cryptocurrency to go with it, which I have not looked at in detail and can't vouch for in any way). For a more limited use case (for now), Apple is a competitor too with their "find my..." network as well. I'm hoping for an open alternative to show up as well.
    - CodeGlitch 5y ago
      What is Helium? Do you have a link please?
      - lxgr 5y ago
        Not sure whether there are any rules on linking/promoting crypto projects here, and please don't consider this an endorsement in any way, but you'll be able to find it when searching for "helium hotspot".
swiley 5y ago
> This sums up the relationship between companies and their customers I'm constantly surprised people let this stuff into their house. IMO modern tech companies are the best argument that a "software market" will never make sense because users not only seem incapable of shopping for software but will often choose the worst option.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

I wonder what would be a good solution here, if you really wanted to offer something of value (without treating your users as a product), that depended on the users opting in? Most people won't opt in, out of convenience, it's pretty much a fact of life. You could incentivize them - say, pay them for being a part of the network and performing a service for others. But a dishonest vendor could just make the purchase price higher by the amount they expect to pay out to the user over service's lifetime. The inherent flexibility/relativity of prices seems to be making it too easy for businesses to scam the customers in general. "Ad subsidizing", "razor-and-blades" model, fake paybacks... is there even a way to ensure that a business that pays you something with one hand, doesn't try to take it back with the other one?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vineyardmike 5y ago
> is there even a way to ensure that a business that pays you something with one hand, doesn't try to take it back with the other one? Hold tighter when they try to take it back. No there is no way to ensure that businesses don't try to maximize profits. Its the same reason you want the thing of value for lowest cost.
smolder 5y ago
To get what we want out of businesses, we'd need an intelligence behind the buying power. Supply side holds all the cards for steering consumer tech, because buyers aren't generally informed and coordinated enough to flex their collective control, unlike on supply side where everything is super consolidated. We've got no "buyers unions", the big brands are basically unavoidable to average consumers, so big brands do what they want.
jjav 5y ago
> I wonder what would be a good solution here, if you really wanted to offer something of value (without treating your users as a product), that depended on the users opting in? Certainly asking for permission and paying for it if permission granted, for a start. Imagine in the physical world if some company decided they need water for their own benefit, so they'll take it by filling buckets from everyones front lawn hoses. That is unambiguously called theft. There shouldn't be any gray area in the electronic world where theft of bandwidth by amazon could be considered anything other than what it is.

flavius29663 5y ago

I would be fine with it if they offered to pay up. Say, popup a message in the next update of the Alexa app asking me: "do you want to allow our device to participate in this mesh network? It will use a little bit of your internet but you'll get 1 dollar credit in Amazon purchases each month." Hell, even make it 2 dollars of digital content. At least give me the choice.

lxgr 5y ago
A nice middle ground would have been to make participation a condition for using your own client devices with the network, i.e. you can only register a Tile if you agree to participating in Sidewalk with your linked Amazon account. That would make adoption much harder, though – a lot more people have just an Echo device than an Echo device and a Tile.
tolbish 5y ago
If this technology is going to exist, it needs competitors or things will get ugly quickly.
- lxgr 5y ago
  There is competition: Helium seems to be doing a very similar thing (although "on the blockchain" and with its own cryptocurrency to go with it, which I have not looked at in detail and can't vouch for in any way). For a more limited use case (for now), Apple is a competitor too with their "find my..." network as well. I'm hoping for an open alternative to show up as well.
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    What is Helium? Do you have a link please?
    - lxgr 5y ago
      Not sure whether there are any rules on linking/promoting crypto projects here, and please don't consider this an endorsement in any way, but you'll be able to find it when searching for "helium hotspot".

swiley 5y ago

> This sums up the relationship between companies and their customers I'm constantly surprised people let this stuff into their house. IMO modern tech companies are the best argument that a "software market" will never make sense because users not only seem incapable of shopping for software but will often choose the worst option.