There are huge privacy implications but anyone who would be willing to understand that already does not use Echo, Ring, etc.
Amazon Sidewalk
361–370 of 687 posts
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only in the sense that restaurateurs don't care if the food is good. If it's selling... sure, they'll keep selling something that sucks. But generally, advertisers aren't quite the fools everyone thinks they are. There are always fools around, but prices tend to be rational enough long term. If ads aren't effective, revenue will dry up eventually. All that effort to track people for ads... these are all attempts at i…
I don't entirely agree. A better analogy might be that a restaurant's landlord doesn't care if the food is good. I've run into the problem that sellers of adspace will often prefer to work more with customers who have lower conversion rates. Makes perfect sense when you think about it, people with the crappiest products need advertising the most, while the best products can lean on word-of-mouth. Edit: Come to think…
Your last statement runs contrary to centuries of business evidence. "Build it and they will come" is a myth.
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#363If anyone is interested, I wouldn't mind collaborating to create a privacy oriented SmartTV or PC for devs or simply an industrial grade dumb TV. I have experience designing and building 70" industrial displays that utilize Samsung LCD panels. These "industrial" panels are normally twice the price of consumer grade ones but are designed to operate 24/7 with a MTBF of 100k hours (approx. 11 years) and are usually twice the brightness of normal ones (a very noticeable difference). I also have direct relations with Samsung for sourcing. Displays I've designed and built: https://bit.ly/3vV9jVm
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#364It is interesting how stark the reaction to this Vs. Apple's "Find My" network is. Apple's version adds every iPhone to part of their network. It uses battery AND expensive mobile data even when the owner has no eligible devices, and that isn't considered controversial. But Amazon wants to use data on non-battery/non-pay per transfer lines and this is considered controversial (and an "abuse of their market position")…
Amazon does not treat user data privacy as a core value. That means there is no floor to police those who use this network for data privacy. Beyond that, Apple mobile devices have the most efficient battery / processor compute on the market. Nothing to be said for mobile data use, though I would be interested to see analysis of how much new bandwidth usage results from participation. Also, I would expect Apple to be…
Amazon's user data policy is very similar to Apple. They have more of it because of their reach but they don't sell it.
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#365[deleted]
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#366Are the ISPs actually okay with this? Ideally Amazon would check who your ISP is and then check if the ISP will allow this type of usage, before just enabling it. If properly protected I don't see the issue, but it really needs to be opt in. The main issue from my point of view is that companies like Amazon automatically assume that a customer is okay with this, without knowing anything about pricing, security requir…
BT, the UK’s largest ISP, has this feature (Wi-fi sharing on a separate network) built into the routers or “hubs” it supplies, and on by default. The benefit for people is that they can get Wi-fi in many places — free for BT customers, and a small fee for others. Note that anonymous access isn’t allowed. Look for “hub hotspots” here: https://www.btwifi.com/find/ For other ISPs who don’t offer something like this, I d…
>The benefit for people is that they can get Wi-fi in many places — free for BT customers, and a small fee for others.
I subscribed to a BT Openreach broadband product, a few years ago, in personal capacity. The service you are describing is called BT WiFi, after being rebranded. For residential customers, it is enabled by default i.e. an opt-out feature, as you have noted. Once you manage to find a way to disable it, you lose the 'benefits'. I found the feature to be extremely disconcerting, especially relating to a pattern of random parked vehicles and people loitering around residential premises at various times of the day, essentially to leech bandwidth off my connection.
It would seem that the ISP supplied router (HH6) was designed to create a splintered guest/public WiFi over a VPN. Although the matter of anonymity and liability was of great concern. However, I did not pursue it any further, due to numerous red flags, relating to degradation in QoS and security; latency, contention, poor signal, connection logs with dubious entries etc. It felt prudent to cut loose, rather than justify any perceived benefits.
To stay on the point, I am not sure if the Sidewalk branding will travel well long-term, might as well drop the facade and call it: Amazon Shodan.
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#367If anyone is interested, I wouldn't mind collaborating to create a privacy oriented SmartTV or PC for devs or simply an industrial grade dumb TV. I have experience designing and building 70" industrial displays that utilize Samsung LCD panels. These "industrial" panels are normally twice the price of consumer grade ones but are designed to operate 24/7 with a MTBF of 100k hours (approx. 11 years) and are usually twic…
An extremely interesting prospect you've got here. What's stopping you from doing it right now?
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#368If anyone is interested, I wouldn't mind collaborating to create a privacy oriented SmartTV or PC for devs or simply an industrial grade dumb TV. I have experience designing and building 70" industrial displays that utilize Samsung LCD panels. These "industrial" panels are normally twice the price of consumer grade ones but are designed to operate 24/7 with a MTBF of 100k hours (approx. 11 years) and are usually twic…
That’s interesting. Can you make something that’s higher end than the most high end consumer TV?
(If Tesla had to be “a better car that’s also electric”, I think this would need to be “a better TV that’s also private”.)
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
The latest Firestick software update is a great example of this. The new UI/UX aggressively de-prioritizes apps from content producers in favor of a "feed" that lets them push their own content and intermediate content producers from their customers. They even go as far as to deliberately hide your saved items/watch next items three levels deep in a menu.
This is one of the reasons why I've always been fascinated by people who claim Amazon has a customer focus. It is impossible to get what you awant from Amazon. If you go to Amazon they are going to make sure you get what they want to give you. You're going to watch the content they make, buy the white label goods they produce and click the adverts they put in front of you. It is the most customer hostile company I've…
"Customer-focus" means focusing on customer satisfaction.
There are many ways to make a person happy at the point of purchase: price, delivery speed, meeting expectations, etc.
In this manner a casino is also customer-focused.
The sense of "hostile" you're using supposes that customers are satisfied in cases where their long-term interests are being harmed.. and, indeed. This is where governments tend to step in.
Re: Amazon Sidewalk
#370Basically xfinitywifi for Amazon products