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Amazon recently turned on support for Amazon Sidewalk on all of their hardware in my home (convention) and decided it was fine to do this because I could opt ou

Amazon recently turned on support for Amazon Sidewalk on all of their hardware in my home (convention) and decided it was fine to do this because I could opt out (configuration). That decision was the final straw for me. Every Amazon device is now unplugged, Prime membership and Amazon music canceled, no longer shopping on their site. Doing what is "easy for the average user" is not sufficient for me, some configurations should be off by default. I shouldn't have to constantly worry that a remote code change could turn my hardware into a new source of revenue for you while I am on vacation at the beach.

dgb23 5y ago
> I shouldn't have to constantly worry that a remote code change could turn my hardware into a new source of revenue for you while I am on vacation at the beach. This is it. It actually induces some kind of anxiety and mild paranoia. We can also very easily support companies that don't treat their customers this way, or their workers, or business partners...
- fnimick 5y ago
  Unfortunately, companies that don't extract maximum revenue from their customers/workers get outcompeted and put out of business by those that do.
  - dgb23 5y ago
    I hear that often but is it really true? There seem to be tons of companies, typically small to medium ones, who provide quality services and products and have earned the trust of their customers, workers and partners over the years without screwing them over left and right. Some of them additionally have higher standards in regards to environmental issues on top of all of this. Nobody is perfect, but I don't think it is required to be a bully to find and keep a sustainable market niche. Overall this behavior is harmful, partly because it puts people into positions where they have overwhelming levels of power and influence. My personal opinion is that this leads to an unreasonable amount of responsibility and an unhealthy detachment or distance from affected people.
  - chrischattin 5y ago
    Treating customers, suppliers, and employees with fairness, dignity, and respect is a competitive ADVANTAGE in the long term. You might make a quick buck in the short term doing otherwise, but you'll lose out over the long term.
Torwald 5y ago
What grates me with these situations is that they have my data, which is one thing, but I don't have access to that data!
- hosteur 5y ago
  In eu you do as per gdpr
- criddell 5y ago
  What grates me is that I can't turn it off by saying "Alexa, turnoff sidewalk". They make you go into the app and dig for it. IMHO, you should be able to access all of the settings via voice.
cma 5y ago
Can you opt out of Apple's similar thing for airtags?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Yes. https://www.macworld.com/article/347243/how-to-opt-out-of-the-find-my-network.html https://www.macworld.com/article/347243/how-to-opt-out-of-th...
  - cma 5y ago
    So both are opt out. Which one is worse?
    - jiofih 5y ago
      Amazon. Apple’s system doesn’t use much of your bandwidth or have anyone else’s data going through your device (it’s completely anonymous).
      - pranau 5y ago
        Can you please explain how Apple’s Find My is anonymous while Sidewalk is not? As far as I understand, Find My collects device location information through other iPhones and then upload them to Apple’s cloud where it can be viewed by you. Apple states that this is done in a privacy preserving way by using rotating identifiers. In the case of Amazon, they state that all the device information being relayed through your device is encrypted and capped at 80kbps. I am not sure I understand why one is a concern while the other isn’t.
        jiofih 5y ago
        Sidewalk is carrying all kinds of data from other users. You have absolutely no idea what. It’s a loosely defined system that Amazon controls remotely at their will. The encryption stops you from snooping like any other TLS traffic, but Amazon itself is the receiver on the other end. And it piggybacks on your own internet connection - 80Kbps is a huge amount of data. Find My identifiers have a single purpose, are useless to anything but the owners device, cannot be used by Apple for tracking, ads or whatever, and id be surprised if the entire payload after a day out is > 8KB total. These look completely different to me.
pranau 5y ago
Can someone explain why there’s so much outrage against Amazon Sidewalk when it’s doing a similar thing to Apple’s Find My/AirTags which was met with almost universal praise?
- newbie578 5y ago
  Easy, Apple has a cult following, Amazon doesn't.
- 0xffff2 5y ago
  I'll grant that the outrage against Sidewalk does seem to be worse, but there are at least some of us who dislike both. I have Find My turned off on my iPhone.
- teekert 5y ago
  I wouldn't like if I would specifically keep my Samsung Smart TV offline because Samsung themselves advice not to talk about sensitive things in front of the telly [0], and then finding out that it did go online, via my neighbor's helpful Alexa... No thank you. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188
  - pranau 5y ago
    Are there any indications that the Sidewalk network can be used to relay other than device control information?
    - teekert 5y ago
      Maybe not, but as always it comes down to trust. And I trust Apple to be more diligent with my iPhone's AirTag locating capabilities than Amazon is with their ability to help any device get online. Amazon makes things cheap and easy but not always in ways agree with. As a counter Example, Canonical got some critique with their "telemetry in the installer", but if you ask me, they did it in the nicest way possible: They told everyone that they want some data to focus developers' efforts where it counts and they let me inspect the json object I was about to send them, so I trust them and sent it to them with a smile.
dathinab 5y ago
I would argue there is a difference between "being opinionated about how to implement a use-case" + "being opinionated about focusing on a small set of use-cases" and "forcing new use-cases on the user". The article is about the former, Amazon Sidewalk about the later. Also nothing while being opinionated can be very use-full for product design there is no reason why people can't be opinionated in a "bad" way. What this article is about, and what most people mean when they say you should be more opinionated is that you should not be to generic, that you should focus on your core use-case and from a companies POV that is always a good idea IMHO. At least as long as you core use-case is the use-case people by your software for.
- cbsmith 5y ago
  "forcing" isn't the right word though. They do have an opt-out. Making it an opt-out vs. an opt-in is very much "the former".
  - dathinab 5y ago
    Given that most people won't even know what is happening without their consent it's not that different from forcing. Opt-out is NOT consent, consent requires you do know about it, at least somewhat understand it and then "say yes". Opt-out it's more like forcing with a way to defend yourself.
    - cbsmith 5y ago
      I didn't say that opt-out is consent... and no opt-out is opt-out, and forcing is forcing. Can you imagine how silly it would sound to talk about all the "forcing" that MacOS and Windows do that you can change by going in to settings and changing it? Indeed, Apple has famously made tons of decisions for their users about what the reasonable defaults might be, and is praised for this; no one calls it forcing. I get it. I don't like the defaults either. That doesn't mean you can just slap on whatever word has negative connotations and say that's what is happening.
- j45 5y ago
  Default opt in to all changes could be Amazon’s self interested and opinionated position. The comment above can also be an opinionated response as well. Saying a company is client centric, but then not.. can be a mixed signal. There is plenty of brainpower to allow customers to tailor and optimize their experience so are less likely to leave, especially influential power users.
SergeAx 5y ago
> easy for the average user Turns out you are not average user. I am quite sure that Amazon's profit from Sidewalk will shadow losses from you and other leavers by couple magnitudes.
pier25 5y ago
I've never understood this Amazon Sidewalk thing. The vast majority of people already have internet at home and phone plans. Also, what's in it for Amazon? How does it profit from something like this?
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  It uses much longer range radios (900 mhz range) to blanket areas where most home routers don't reach. Comcast does the same thing but with standard Wifi with their routers, with some hidden SSIDs you can't opt out of (Xfinity Home etc.)
- kersplody 5y ago
  It enables Amazon devices to transparently connect to amazon with near zero user configuration as long as the device is within range of an authorized AP or another sidewalk device owned by anyone. This makes Amazon devices to "just work" in more places and most users will love it because they don't know and/or don't care about the privacy and network security implications.
risyachka 5y ago
Just curious - has there been an opt-in rate more than at least 30% in anything at all? Literally any tech or feature.
SubiculumCode 5y ago
I just cancelled my Prime as well. Too far. And I don't even have their hardware.
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
I feel like, supporting them or not with their store, it was always a no-brainer to not purchase smart, cloud connected doorbells and wire-tape speakers and litter my house with them. I kinda hate my Roku even having a microphone button and my kid figuring out how to use it. We're crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, ripe for corporate/state abuse and we already have history and experience about the usage of tech being grown to continually spy on people one nudge at a time, that we shouldn't be fooled by this stuff. but here we are, plenty of smart, educated, technical people who know that history, salivating at MOAR GADGETS THAT DO STUFFS.
- ostenning 5y ago
  People need real hobbies
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
    its a combination of things. People want convenience and that desire is never ending and never sated. in the age of consumerism, people want to consume MORE but live more minimally. This gives way to more cloud, connected services, more "renting". More.. processing by someone else, somewhere else. And yes, people spend less time creating and doing and too much time just consuming as their main hobby. They need to spend more time outdoors, doing stuff with their hands, being creative and constructive. And lastly - my more controversial, generalized but hyper-specific point - is up until COVID and tons of protests turned riots, people were moving into cities at a high rate. They moved into gentrified areas, down played the crime, downplayed the smog, downplayed the endless mismanagement of tax money by old corrupt city governments. They'll go as far as to call people who don't want to move into the city as being racist (for wanting to avoid the crime) or for destroying the environment b/c they don't want to live packed in like sardines in a smog filled urban center. Well for all those hipsters who think crime isn't such a problem and only something "racists" point out - they all seem to have this incessant need for RING doorbells to keep people stealing the never ending array Amazon and other CongloMo Inc packages from their middle class porches. They go out in the streets, pumping their fist in the air for BLM, then go home, waiting for their packages from amazon, hopefully protected by Amazon RING doorbells which are expanding the private/public partnership in an ever growing police and surveillance state. They get online and finger wag in one direction and allow their money to vote in another. They're an awful lot like rural republicans voting against their own economic interests, but at least on the Republican side there's a bit of a bait and switch going on. here, it's just direct hypocrisy.

dgb23 5y ago

> I shouldn't have to constantly worry that a remote code change could turn my hardware into a new source of revenue for you while I am on vacation at the beach. This is it. It actually induces some kind of anxiety and mild paranoia. We can also very easily support companies that don't treat their customers this way, or their workers, or business partners...

fnimick 5y ago
Unfortunately, companies that don't extract maximum revenue from their customers/workers get outcompeted and put out of business by those that do.
- dgb23 5y ago
  I hear that often but is it really true? There seem to be tons of companies, typically small to medium ones, who provide quality services and products and have earned the trust of their customers, workers and partners over the years without screwing them over left and right. Some of them additionally have higher standards in regards to environmental issues on top of all of this. Nobody is perfect, but I don't think it is required to be a bully to find and keep a sustainable market niche. Overall this behavior is harmful, partly because it puts people into positions where they have overwhelming levels of power and influence. My personal opinion is that this leads to an unreasonable amount of responsibility and an unhealthy detachment or distance from affected people.
- chrischattin 5y ago
  Treating customers, suppliers, and employees with fairness, dignity, and respect is a competitive ADVANTAGE in the long term. You might make a quick buck in the short term doing otherwise, but you'll lose out over the long term.

Torwald 5y ago

What grates me with these situations is that they have my data, which is one thing, but I don't have access to that data!

hosteur 5y ago
In eu you do as per gdpr
criddell 5y ago
What grates me is that I can't turn it off by saying "Alexa, turnoff sidewalk". They make you go into the app and dig for it. IMHO, you should be able to access all of the settings via voice.

cma 5y ago

Can you opt out of Apple's similar thing for airtags?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Yes. https://www.macworld.com/article/347243/how-to-opt-out-of-the-find-my-network.html https://www.macworld.com/article/347243/how-to-opt-out-of-th...
- cma 5y ago
  So both are opt out. Which one is worse?
  - jiofih 5y ago
    Amazon. Apple’s system doesn’t use much of your bandwidth or have anyone else’s data going through your device (it’s completely anonymous).
    - pranau 5y ago
      Can you please explain how Apple’s Find My is anonymous while Sidewalk is not? As far as I understand, Find My collects device location information through other iPhones and then upload them to Apple’s cloud where it can be viewed by you. Apple states that this is done in a privacy preserving way by using rotating identifiers. In the case of Amazon, they state that all the device information being relayed through your device is encrypted and capped at 80kbps. I am not sure I understand why one is a concern while the other isn’t.
      - jiofih 5y ago
        Sidewalk is carrying all kinds of data from other users. You have absolutely no idea what. It’s a loosely defined system that Amazon controls remotely at their will. The encryption stops you from snooping like any other TLS traffic, but Amazon itself is the receiver on the other end. And it piggybacks on your own internet connection - 80Kbps is a huge amount of data. Find My identifiers have a single purpose, are useless to anything but the owners device, cannot be used by Apple for tracking, ads or whatever, and id be surprised if the entire payload after a day out is > 8KB total. These look completely different to me.

pranau 5y ago

Can someone explain why there’s so much outrage against Amazon Sidewalk when it’s doing a similar thing to Apple’s Find My/AirTags which was met with almost universal praise?

newbie578 5y ago
Easy, Apple has a cult following, Amazon doesn't.
0xffff2 5y ago
I'll grant that the outrage against Sidewalk does seem to be worse, but there are at least some of us who dislike both. I have Find My turned off on my iPhone.
teekert 5y ago
I wouldn't like if I would specifically keep my Samsung Smart TV offline because Samsung themselves advice not to talk about sensitive things in front of the telly [0], and then finding out that it did go online, via my neighbor's helpful Alexa... No thank you. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188
- pranau 5y ago
  Are there any indications that the Sidewalk network can be used to relay other than device control information?
  - teekert 5y ago
    Maybe not, but as always it comes down to trust. And I trust Apple to be more diligent with my iPhone's AirTag locating capabilities than Amazon is with their ability to help any device get online. Amazon makes things cheap and easy but not always in ways agree with. As a counter Example, Canonical got some critique with their "telemetry in the installer", but if you ask me, they did it in the nicest way possible: They told everyone that they want some data to focus developers' efforts where it counts and they let me inspect the json object I was about to send them, so I trust them and sent it to them with a smile.

dathinab 5y ago

I would argue there is a difference between "being opinionated about how to implement a use-case" + "being opinionated about focusing on a small set of use-cases" and "forcing new use-cases on the user". The article is about the former, Amazon Sidewalk about the later. Also nothing while being opinionated can be very use-full for product design there is no reason why people can't be opinionated in a "bad" way. What this article is about, and what most people mean when they say you should be more opinionated is that you should not be to generic, that you should focus on your core use-case and from a companies POV that is always a good idea IMHO. At least as long as you core use-case is the use-case people by your software for.

cbsmith 5y ago
"forcing" isn't the right word though. They do have an opt-out. Making it an opt-out vs. an opt-in is very much "the former".
- dathinab 5y ago
  Given that most people won't even know what is happening without their consent it's not that different from forcing. Opt-out is NOT consent, consent requires you do know about it, at least somewhat understand it and then "say yes". Opt-out it's more like forcing with a way to defend yourself.
  - cbsmith 5y ago
    I didn't say that opt-out is consent... and no opt-out is opt-out, and forcing is forcing. Can you imagine how silly it would sound to talk about all the "forcing" that MacOS and Windows do that you can change by going in to settings and changing it? Indeed, Apple has famously made tons of decisions for their users about what the reasonable defaults might be, and is praised for this; no one calls it forcing. I get it. I don't like the defaults either. That doesn't mean you can just slap on whatever word has negative connotations and say that's what is happening.
j45 5y ago
Default opt in to all changes could be Amazon’s self interested and opinionated position. The comment above can also be an opinionated response as well. Saying a company is client centric, but then not.. can be a mixed signal. There is plenty of brainpower to allow customers to tailor and optimize their experience so are less likely to leave, especially influential power users.

SergeAx 5y ago

> easy for the average user Turns out you are not average user. I am quite sure that Amazon's profit from Sidewalk will shadow losses from you and other leavers by couple magnitudes.

pier25 5y ago

I've never understood this Amazon Sidewalk thing. The vast majority of people already have internet at home and phone plans. Also, what's in it for Amazon? How does it profit from something like this?

radicaldreamer 5y ago
It uses much longer range radios (900 mhz range) to blanket areas where most home routers don't reach. Comcast does the same thing but with standard Wifi with their routers, with some hidden SSIDs you can't opt out of (Xfinity Home etc.)
kersplody 5y ago
It enables Amazon devices to transparently connect to amazon with near zero user configuration as long as the device is within range of an authorized AP or another sidewalk device owned by anyone. This makes Amazon devices to "just work" in more places and most users will love it because they don't know and/or don't care about the privacy and network security implications.

risyachka 5y ago

Just curious - has there been an opt-in rate more than at least 30% in anything at all? Literally any tech or feature.

SubiculumCode 5y ago

I just cancelled my Prime as well. Too far. And I don't even have their hardware.

loudtieblahblah 5y ago

I feel like, supporting them or not with their store, it was always a no-brainer to not purchase smart, cloud connected doorbells and wire-tape speakers and litter my house with them. I kinda hate my Roku even having a microphone button and my kid figuring out how to use it. We're crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, ripe for corporate/state abuse and we already have history and experience about the usage of tech being grown to continually spy on people one nudge at a time, that we shouldn't be fooled by this stuff. but here we are, plenty of smart, educated, technical people who know that history, salivating at MOAR GADGETS THAT DO STUFFS.

ostenning 5y ago
People need real hobbies
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  its a combination of things. People want convenience and that desire is never ending and never sated. in the age of consumerism, people want to consume MORE but live more minimally. This gives way to more cloud, connected services, more "renting". More.. processing by someone else, somewhere else. And yes, people spend less time creating and doing and too much time just consuming as their main hobby. They need to spend more time outdoors, doing stuff with their hands, being creative and constructive. And lastly - my more controversial, generalized but hyper-specific point - is up until COVID and tons of protests turned riots, people were moving into cities at a high rate. They moved into gentrified areas, down played the crime, downplayed the smog, downplayed the endless mismanagement of tax money by old corrupt city governments. They'll go as far as to call people who don't want to move into the city as being racist (for wanting to avoid the crime) or for destroying the environment b/c they don't want to live packed in like sardines in a smog filled urban center. Well for all those hipsters who think crime isn't such a problem and only something "racists" point out - they all seem to have this incessant need for RING doorbells to keep people stealing the never ending array Amazon and other CongloMo Inc packages from their middle class porches. They go out in the streets, pumping their fist in the air for BLM, then go home, waiting for their packages from amazon, hopefully protected by Amazon RING doorbells which are expanding the private/public partnership in an ever growing police and surveillance state. They get online and finger wag in one direction and allow their money to vote in another. They're an awful lot like rural republicans voting against their own economic interests, but at least on the Republican side there's a bit of a bait and switch going on. here, it's just direct hypocrisy.