221–230 of 338 posts
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The problem is that they're using my hardware, my internet connection and my electricity without paying me or asking for my permission.
Unless it takes significantly more power to do this, you definitely gave it permission to use your electricity.
I demand RMS voltage, amperage, and power factor.
94.9% pure, organic, outrage, clickbait FUD. This feels like an "you're either with us or you're against us, Amazon B A D"-article. The central thesis is misleading and wrong because it's NOT "unlimited, direct sharing of your WiFi to whatever Amazon users happen to fall and scrape their knees outside your home because they can't skateboard," it's "likely low-rate connectivity for other Amazon users' devices over Blu…
The problem is that they're using my hardware, my internet connection and my electricity without paying me or asking for my permission.
Tile?
BitTorrent?
ipfs?
i2p?
Bitcoin?
freenet? (LOL, jk)
Or that software/firmware updates are automatic. Oooh! Also that Alexa is recording all the time without your permission. Insert moral panic here. In addition, 99% of IoT "smart" devices will cease operating whenever the company decides to turn off their servers. Where's the outrage and bikeshedding?
You invited Big Brother into your house, and now you're worried about the tiny bit of power and/or bandwidth to help other people find where the dropped their keys?
Do you think that the neighbors' smart light switches are going to go under their wallplates at night and Torrent porn on your precious idle internet connection without paying you 5 cents?
Gimme a break. Opt-out if you really don't want to also benefit from a globally-distributed 900 MHz LR BLE community mesh network.
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So they are stealing 500MB of your cap if they aren't compensating you.
As exchange for their otherwise unpaid service from those devices, they're using a fraction of your potentially capped internet if you happen to be in a market with such poor competition and/or poor regulatory environment that your service is capped.
So I gotta install their piece of shit apps to opt out of this when all I use my Alexa for is a kitchen timer? Figures.
A server to provide processing power for my devices running small python scripts.
I wish Dumb TVs weren't basically dead at this point...
94.9% pure, organic, outrage, clickbait FUD. This feels like an "you're either with us or you're against us, Amazon B A D"-article. The central thesis is misleading and wrong because it's NOT "unlimited, direct sharing of your WiFi to whatever Amazon users happen to fall and scrape their knees outside your home because they can't skateboard," it's "likely low-rate connectivity for other Amazon users' devices over Blu…
I feel like 20 years ago we would have complimented them for such an ingenious solution to backup network capability for security related devices. I don't love the lack of consent involved, but the concerns are way overblown here.
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But not many people would bother to opt in, even if they knew about it, so ...
Well if noone who owns these devices wants to do it it probably shouldn't be done then, right? Or Amazon could give a 5$ credit or something. That would probably be enough.
I think it's just a matter of comparing the number of people who would actually opt in to such a service versus the number of people who don't really care one way or the other whether they're opted in.
When it's opt-in, you can expect your network to consist of:
total = [number of people who care enough to opt in]
When it's opt-out, you can expect:
total = [number of people who care enough to opt in] + [number of people who don't care either way] + [number of people who who would opt out if they knew they could] - [number of people who opt out]
Even if you perfected your user education to ensure 100% of [number of people who who would opt out if they knew they could] actually opt out (a perfectly-valid "moral" end-goal, IMO), your resulting network would still be significantly larger than if you made the feature opt-in.
If a decision-maker sees the feature as "helpful" to users (a likely assumption in a vacuum), I could also see them making a judgement call to make the feature opt-out to maximize the "good impact" it potentially could have.
But this is Amazon. So it's way more likely the decision-maker is just trying to maximize company profit (which could still be morally justified if they cared to ensure everyone that wanted to opt out could!) and not thinking about whether the feature morally "should" be done or not.
I'd give any other company the benefit of the doubt here and assume they're valuing the good of [total number of people on the network] over the "bad" from screwing over [number of people who who would opt out if they knew they could]. I'm inclined to think Amazon is valuing the profits of [total number of people on the network] instead.
This page on Tom's Guide has good background, a list of devices and instructions on how to opt out. https://www.tomsguide.com/reference/what-is-amazon-sidewalk Amazon App> More > Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk > Disable
What does one do it they don't have the Alexa app? It seems counter-productive to install it just to turn this off.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that they're using my hardware, my internet connection and my electricity without paying me or asking for my permission.
Where's the sanctimonious outrage at Skype, which is almost entirely p2p? Tile? BitTorrent? ipfs? i2p? Bitcoin? freenet? (LOL, jk) Or that software/firmware updates are automatic. Oooh! Also that Alexa is recording all the time without your permission. Insert moral panic here. In addition, 99% of IoT "smart" devices will cease operating whenever the company decides to turn off their servers. Where's the outrage and b…
Skype isn't using your bandwidth for other people's calls.
With Tile, they make it pretty clear that you're joining a network of Bluetooth devices.
As to why you're mentioning P2P protocols like BitTorrent, um... what exactly are you smoking? This has nothing to do with the retroactive opt-out sharing of bandwidth that Amazon is doing.
People don't like it when they buy something and then it suddenly starts exhibiting unadvertised behavior that can only be disabled behind dark patterns. The outrage doesn't exist for those other things because the intention of those things is to share bandwidth.
One week? Why the deadline? At all?
They do seem like they're in a hurry. For something that is meant to help and apparently put smiles on our faces it does seem like high pressure. Perhaps its less about the smiles then? Maybe not about the helping either.
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I bought my mom an Echo for Christmas last year for the kitchen, since she likes making lists and setting timers for baking and her hands are starting to show their age (she’s 63, ‘bout that time I guess). Really grating that what was at one time a helpful device for older folks is now retroactively being turned into yet another internet surveillance device.
> retroactively being turned into yet another internet surveillance device. Oh, and an ad-delivery mechanism. Ask Alexa to set a timer, and sometimes she'll rebut with "while you wait why not try Amazon Music!" It's absolutely infuriating. I emailed jeff@amazon.com (VIP support team) and they confirmed it could not be disabled by normal means. They disabled it on their end but then had to do it again when somehow it…