5 ms·
>You'd have a hard time convincing most American families to purchase anything with a >$1000 price tag. Like cars, they'll likely purchase them through finance
by heaney-555 3mo ago
>You'd have a hard time convincing most American families to purchase anything with a >$1000 price tag.
Like cars, they'll likely purchase them through finance deals, with a monthly payment. Or perhaps even rent/lease them.
- meowkit 3mo agoMuch easier to remotely brick a robot too I imagine
- mbil 3mo agoLeasing seems like it could make sense given rapid upgrades in the technology. Why spend $15k on a home robot that will be obsoleted in the next few years?
- garbageman 3mo agoLeasing is out, but locked-in subscriptions are in!
- qurren 3mo agoCars are an absolute necessity in the US unless you live in one of the small handful of cities that have viable public transit. Different thing altogether. Robots aren't a necessity, and for a price tag in the tens of thousands, most people will just mop their own floors and do their own laundry.
- georgemcbay 3mo ago> Robots aren't a necessity, and for a price tag in the tens of thousands, most people will just mop their own floors and do their own laundry. And (regardless of the costs involved) if I were going to pay money to not do this stuff myself, I'd rather pay a human to do it because I know there are humans out there that could use the work and I value them much more than I value Google and other corporations making even more obscene amounts of money selling future e-waste.
- micromacrofoot 3mo ago$45k cars are not neccessary though, and that's the average american car loan today
- bigfishrunning 3mo agoThat's really more of a financial literacy problem though. People don't see $45k car, they see $600/mo payment. And car dealers very much sell on the payment and not on the actual price.
- pessimizer 3mo agoWhy would it be different for a robot?
- bigfishrunning 3mo agoPeople *need* a car, and a salesman manipulates them into buying more car then they need. People aren't convinced they *need* a robot. increasing your spend by 25% is a smaller change then increasing your spend by infinity%
- drusepth 3mo agonit: 45k is the average car loan for a new car, but average for a used car is $25k. Purchasing a car is a necessity but purchasing a new car is a luxury.
- micromacrofoot 3mo agoAverage monthly payment for both new and used cars is $500-$700
- michaelmrose 3mo agoPeople are financing small consumer goods with 3 digit price tags because they can't afford their mediocre already leveraged life. They borrow high 4 to low 5 figures for a car because they can't get to work to earn money so they don't have to join the bums sleeping on the cardboard. They will not be borrowing high 5 figures to low 6 figures for Rosie the Robot. If Rosie was the only output she would never happen. Rosie might happen as a side benefit of replacing American workers but only for the rich people. The vast majority which may be replaced would probably be better off burning down the factory rather than celebrate their upcoming domestic helper.
- randomNumber7 3mo agoIf you have a robot doing household work you can spend more time at work /S
- kelvinjps10 3mo agoAt that point why not have a human cleaning service it will probably be cheaper
- luckydata 3mo agoit's not cheap at all and the privacy and logistical implications of letting a stranger inside your house is something not everyone wants to deal with. I would rather have a robot.
- stirfish 3mo agoI don't trust a robot with my privacy, but I know Linette isn't building a profile of my shopping habits and Wi-Fi traffic. She is also careful to not let my cats out.
- blacksmith_tb 3mo agoNot to pull on the tinfoil hat, but I would assume most commercially available home cleaning robots will be covered with cameras, mics, and other sensors, and connected to their manufacturer's cloud... I don't pay for housecleaning, but I would vet humans quite differently.
- infinitezest 3mo agoSuggesting that a robot is the more privacy friendly option is an interesting take.
- Marha01 3mo agoWhy not? A recording from a robot can be potentially viewed by a real human, if the company is not reputable (happened with robotic vacuums). But by default, no humans will view it. A human house cleaner by definition is a real human looking at your home every time.
- defrost 3mo agoOne human, with a single set of human eyes and a limited network of associates with few immediate criminals looking to take advantage (although, yes, that does happen). Versus a small army of roomba's and equivalents mapping out floor plans and tangentially exposing human occupation times with that large data set almost certainly exposed to criminal and surveillance networks that will almost certainly use some of that choicer data to their advantage. It's literally trade offs in both cases.
- lovasoa 3mo agoOf course we'll rent them! I don't even want to keep a robot in my flat all the time. But that means speed does matter after all. The renting company will need to clean as many flats as possible with a single robot in a single day.