It's worse than a "solution in search of a problem." It's a problem in and of itself. Networked appliances almost always need some remote back-end to talk to. B

It's worse than a "solution in search of a problem." It's a problem in and of itself. Networked appliances almost always need some remote back-end to talk to. But companies don't have much incentive to maintain those back-ends for the 10-year+ life of a washing machine, coffee maker, refrigerator, etc. So you end up in at least one of two situations: Either you lose functionality over time as companies deprecate those back-ends even though the hardware is still good (i.e., forced obsolescence leading to e-waste), and/or your outdated device ends up being a target for botnets to propagate themselves. IoT is such a damn scam in the long-term.