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I was an Amazon intern in 2011 and there was another intern I met at a party who told me about this fact. We all thought it was hilarious. His entire intern pr

by mabbo 5y ago

I was an Amazon intern in 2011 and there was another intern I met at a party who told me about this fact. We all thought it was hilarious. His entire intern project was a small piece of the system being built to detect abuse of these SIMs and stop it. Given it's a decade later now, I doubt it still works or works for very long.

kweks 5y ago
I can't even begin to imagine the bills that were racked up via this and others (like the Lime SIMs).. For the Lime SIMs, there was a day when the pipe was turned off - I can imagine it was the day someone looked into their twillio billing in detail..
- simonebrunozzi 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure Amazon agreed to a fixed fee from a number of carriers, and moved on. The few outliars might have costed a few $M over the years, which is a rounding error for Amazon.
delecti 5y ago
I think I remember encountering that project. It got built out a bit more by the time I started full-time in 2012. I could be misremembering the specifics, but I think the most recent country from which a device checked-in was used to decided the data cap, because unlimited 3g cost dramatically less when the devices weren't roaming.
southerntofu 5y ago
> His entire intern project was a small piece of the system being built to detect abuse of these SIMs and stop it. I'd rather work for another evil corporation like Mac Donalds than work to remove features from devices people have already bought. When your company is selling surveillance tools to individuals masquerading as e-book readers and you have to struggle to just install a libre Operating System, it's not even close to fair that you get to use the SIM card Amazon planted in your device in whichever way you please.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Maybe just don't buy a Kindle in the first place if this is your outlook?
  - vages 5y ago
    I don't agree with his/her outlook, but I don't think "don't buy it" is a valid counterargument Alice: "Don't work for Foo vineyard. Foo vineyard puts poison in the wine that people buy without them knowing it." Bob: "Just don't buy Foo's wine yourself, then." (Millions of people are still being poisoned drinking Foo wine and would probably buy a different wine if they were informed about it.) However, if you morally object to anyone purchasing Amazon's Kindle on the basis of surveillance capitalism, I'm not sure if arguing over limiting data use with their SIM cards is the best use of your energy.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      It's not poisoned. It just doesn't have features that you want. The analogy would be that you don't like the style of the wine. They're arguing 'I bought a product which doesn't offer feature X and I'm mad that it turns out it can't do X'. Use your common sense. Buy a product that explicitly does have X if you want X.
      - smorgusofborg 5y ago
        It is also a little more subtle than you are describing. People ask why do right to repair laws need to exist despite John Deere having thousands of competitors for tractors? Similarly, the market for e-readers and smart phones should allow limitless competition. How many e-readers companies could negotiate great terms for e-ink displays and world wide 3g coverage? If any of them did, might Amazon automatically get their negotiated best price as part of the clauses Amazon could negotiate given it has most of the volume? If Amazon and Sony get the best price on e-ink displays, Amazon and b&n on US networks, and Amazon and Kobo on European networks, who is actually competing with Amazon to sell an ereader with world wide coverage?
      - 5y ago

by mabbo 5y ago

kweks 5y ago

I can't even begin to imagine the bills that were racked up via this and others (like the Lime SIMs).. For the Lime SIMs, there was a day when the pipe was turned off - I can imagine it was the day someone looked into their twillio billing in detail..

simonebrunozzi 5y ago
I'm pretty sure Amazon agreed to a fixed fee from a number of carriers, and moved on. The few outliars might have costed a few $M over the years, which is a rounding error for Amazon.

delecti 5y ago

I think I remember encountering that project. It got built out a bit more by the time I started full-time in 2012. I could be misremembering the specifics, but I think the most recent country from which a device checked-in was used to decided the data cap, because unlimited 3g cost dramatically less when the devices weren't roaming.

southerntofu 5y ago

> His entire intern project was a small piece of the system being built to detect abuse of these SIMs and stop it. I'd rather work for another evil corporation like Mac Donalds than work to remove features from devices people have already bought. When your company is selling surveillance tools to individuals masquerading as e-book readers and you have to struggle to just install a libre Operating System, it's not even close to fair that you get to use the SIM card Amazon planted in your device in whichever way you please.

chrisseaton 5y ago
Maybe just don't buy a Kindle in the first place if this is your outlook?
- vages 5y ago
  I don't agree with his/her outlook, but I don't think "don't buy it" is a valid counterargument Alice: "Don't work for Foo vineyard. Foo vineyard puts poison in the wine that people buy without them knowing it." Bob: "Just don't buy Foo's wine yourself, then." (Millions of people are still being poisoned drinking Foo wine and would probably buy a different wine if they were informed about it.) However, if you morally object to anyone purchasing Amazon's Kindle on the basis of surveillance capitalism, I'm not sure if arguing over limiting data use with their SIM cards is the best use of your energy.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    It's not poisoned. It just doesn't have features that you want. The analogy would be that you don't like the style of the wine. They're arguing 'I bought a product which doesn't offer feature X and I'm mad that it turns out it can't do X'. Use your common sense. Buy a product that explicitly does have X if you want X.
    - smorgusofborg 5y ago
      It is also a little more subtle than you are describing. People ask why do right to repair laws need to exist despite John Deere having thousands of competitors for tractors? Similarly, the market for e-readers and smart phones should allow limitless competition. How many e-readers companies could negotiate great terms for e-ink displays and world wide 3g coverage? If any of them did, might Amazon automatically get their negotiated best price as part of the clauses Amazon could negotiate given it has most of the volume? If Amazon and Sony get the best price on e-ink displays, Amazon and b&n on US networks, and Amazon and Kobo on European networks, who is actually competing with Amazon to sell an ereader with world wide coverage?
    - 5y ago