4 ms·

In short, the people who "purchased" these cameras do not own them. Specifically, the owners of these cameras may own the hardware, but cannot use it because t

by cs702 4y ago

In short, the people who "purchased" these cameras do not own them. Specifically, the owners of these cameras may own the hardware, but cannot use it because they do not own nor control the software that runs it. Richard Stallman predicted this decades ago. Regardless of what you think of him, he was the first person to come up with the idea of free open-source software expressly to give users the ability to (quoting) "control the program and what it does for them. When users don't control the program, we call it a 'nonfree' or 'proprietary' program. The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program."[a] He was, and is, right about this. [a] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ilyt 4y ago
Not that I disagree but in this case it seems to be mostly about "free" cloud storage ending: > Starting April 1, the company would no longer support models that included no-fee seven-day rolling storage of video clips—a well-advertised selling point. And cameras were still being able to be used with external storage > Instead, Arlo device owners could upgrade to one of the company’s paid plans, starting at $13 a month or buy an add-on device to store videos. Which is... exactly what you'd have to do with fully open source system anyway, buy a box to store it or pay someone for storage.
- cs702 4y ago
  > Not that I disagree but... :-) Keep in mind: Customers thought they were purchasing cameras with seven days of storage.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ilyt 4y ago
    I mean if you thought you will pay flat fee and get online hosting till the end of time (and most likely didn't read the fine print that said it isn't infinite in time), that's on you
    - yppop 4y ago
      Well, that sounds like someone whoa attained their ‘sage wisdom’ through bitter experience —- and not through native wisdom. Not sayin’ you’re wrong, just sayin’. PS - yes, at one time, I probably bought a pair of those ‘X-ray glasses’ advertised in the backs of comic books.
      - ilyt 4y ago
        I guess achieving "sage wisdom" of "reading the terms of service you pay for" attained at cost of only few shitty cameras is cheap for the affected.
    - gameman144 4y ago
      Eh, I disagree here. Like some responsibility is always on the consumer, but clear information is essential in good markets. If I pay for a hard drive and get one TB of space, I get it til the end of time. If some other product says "1 TB of storage", with no other context, it'd be easy to confuse the two (especially for people who aren't tech-savvy).
      - ilyt 4y ago
        > If I pay for a hard drive and get one TB of space, I get it til the end of time. If some other product says "1 TB of storage", with no other context, it'd be easy to confuse the two (especially for people who aren't tech-savvy). If your physical object you bought that stores the data physically on the object , sure. But it was not that, it was cloud service
        gameman144 4y ago
        But people bought physical cameras. It's not unreasonable to think "I am buying this camera with one week of storage". If you don't know how technology works and it's not clearly explained, it's very easy to misconstrue that.
- indymike 4y ago
  > Which is... exactly what you'd have to do with fully open source system anyway, buy a box to store it or pay someone for storage. Wrong. I'd simply host the video on some device I have sitting around. Storing streamed video isn't hard to do and there are many ways to do it that take little effort. Being forced to pay money for something I already have capability to do is the problem. It's wasteful and makes me happy I did not buy Arlo's product.
  - ilyt 4y ago
    Right but the selling point was never "... and you can just use your NAS to store it!". We can complain about their shitty e-waste producing model but also acknowledge it is not product targeted to nerds building their own video monitoring infrastructure, OSS or not.
    - indymike 4y ago
      > Right but the selling point was never "... and you can just use your NAS to store it!". This is actually the problem with these products, there's absolutely no fallback. I wonder how many people buy another Arlo when they get bit by the artificial end of life?
andyjohnson0 4y ago
> In short, the people who "purchased" these cameras do not own them. They do own the camera. They just don't own the cloud service that makes the camera useful. Or even operable. Reminds me of Cory Doctorow's story Unauthorized Bread.
- kevincox 4y ago
  > but you can never have control over a service someone else runs https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > They do own the camera. They just don't own the cloud service that makes the camera useful. Or even operable. I don’t know the model, but the article makes it seem as if the cameras work perfectly well without it? I hate online-only products and think they are between scam and trap, but this seems more a case of false advertising than anything like that.
  - logbiscuitswave 4y ago
    Well-ish depending on your use case. It still requires their app, hub, and cloud services to work even just for steaming. There’s no completely “local only” mode. You can use local storage to save recordings by connecting flash storage to the hub, but it’s only really useful a backup. You can’t view it in the app (you have to sneaker-net the storage to a computer), and it can only save triggered recordings. Basically if you don’t care about storing and saving recordings for future use and only plan to stream from the cameras, then it’ll continue to work (as long as Arlo’s web services work of course).
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      Oh wow, that’s horrible. I wish articles focused on that instead of some minor marketing issue :/
- Brian_K_White 4y ago

by cs702 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ilyt 4y ago

Not that I disagree but in this case it seems to be mostly about "free" cloud storage ending: > Starting April 1, the company would no longer support models that included no-fee seven-day rolling storage of video clips—a well-advertised selling point. And cameras were still being able to be used with external storage > Instead, Arlo device owners could upgrade to one of the company’s paid plans, starting at $13 a month or buy an add-on device to store videos. Which is... exactly what you'd have to do with fully open source system anyway, buy a box to store it or pay someone for storage.

cs702 4y ago
> Not that I disagree but... :-) Keep in mind: Customers thought they were purchasing cameras with seven days of storage.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ilyt 4y ago
  I mean if you thought you will pay flat fee and get online hosting till the end of time (and most likely didn't read the fine print that said it isn't infinite in time), that's on you
  - yppop 4y ago
    Well, that sounds like someone whoa attained their ‘sage wisdom’ through bitter experience —- and not through native wisdom. Not sayin’ you’re wrong, just sayin’. PS - yes, at one time, I probably bought a pair of those ‘X-ray glasses’ advertised in the backs of comic books.
    - ilyt 4y ago
      I guess achieving "sage wisdom" of "reading the terms of service you pay for" attained at cost of only few shitty cameras is cheap for the affected.
  - gameman144 4y ago
    Eh, I disagree here. Like some responsibility is always on the consumer, but clear information is essential in good markets. If I pay for a hard drive and get one TB of space, I get it til the end of time. If some other product says "1 TB of storage", with no other context, it'd be easy to confuse the two (especially for people who aren't tech-savvy).
    - ilyt 4y ago
      > If I pay for a hard drive and get one TB of space, I get it til the end of time. If some other product says "1 TB of storage", with no other context, it'd be easy to confuse the two (especially for people who aren't tech-savvy). If your physical object you bought that stores the data physically on the object , sure. But it was not that, it was cloud service
      - gameman144 4y ago
        But people bought physical cameras. It's not unreasonable to think "I am buying this camera with one week of storage". If you don't know how technology works and it's not clearly explained, it's very easy to misconstrue that.
indymike 4y ago
> Which is... exactly what you'd have to do with fully open source system anyway, buy a box to store it or pay someone for storage. Wrong. I'd simply host the video on some device I have sitting around. Storing streamed video isn't hard to do and there are many ways to do it that take little effort. Being forced to pay money for something I already have capability to do is the problem. It's wasteful and makes me happy I did not buy Arlo's product.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Right but the selling point was never "... and you can just use your NAS to store it!". We can complain about their shitty e-waste producing model but also acknowledge it is not product targeted to nerds building their own video monitoring infrastructure, OSS or not.
  - indymike 4y ago
    > Right but the selling point was never "... and you can just use your NAS to store it!". This is actually the problem with these products, there's absolutely no fallback. I wonder how many people buy another Arlo when they get bit by the artificial end of life?

andyjohnson0 4y ago

> In short, the people who "purchased" these cameras do not own them. They do own the camera. They just don't own the cloud service that makes the camera useful. Or even operable. Reminds me of Cory Doctorow's story Unauthorized Bread.

kevincox 4y ago
> but you can never have control over a service someone else runs https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
Semaphor 4y ago
> They do own the camera. They just don't own the cloud service that makes the camera useful. Or even operable. I don’t know the model, but the article makes it seem as if the cameras work perfectly well without it? I hate online-only products and think they are between scam and trap, but this seems more a case of false advertising than anything like that.
- logbiscuitswave 4y ago
  Well-ish depending on your use case. It still requires their app, hub, and cloud services to work even just for steaming. There’s no completely “local only” mode. You can use local storage to save recordings by connecting flash storage to the hub, but it’s only really useful a backup. You can’t view it in the app (you have to sneaker-net the storage to a computer), and it can only save triggered recordings. Basically if you don’t care about storing and saving recordings for future use and only plan to stream from the cameras, then it’ll continue to work (as long as Arlo’s web services work of course).
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Oh wow, that’s horrible. I wish articles focused on that instead of some minor marketing issue :/
Brian_K_White 4y ago